
Class Q)< 

Book_.._ 



A MEMORIAL 




Rev. THOMAS MATHER SMITH, D.D.. 

LATE MILNOR PROFESSOR OF SYSTEMATIC DIVINITY IN THE THEOLOGICAL 

SEMINARY OF THE DIOCESE OF OHIO, AND SOMETIME PRESIDENT 

OF KENYON COLLEGE. 



wr s. p. 



1866. 






RIVERSIDE, CAMBRIDGE: 
PRINTED BY H. 0. HOUGHTON AND COMPANY. 






1 



MEMORIAL. 



Thomas Mather Smith, the subject of this Memorial, 
was the eldest son of the Kev. Daniel Smith, A. M., 
and Mary, his wife, and was born at Stamford, Con- 
necticut, on the 7th of March, 1796. His sister, elder 
by two years, preceded him to the grave, and the few 
memories of his earliest years have faded out, other 
than the recollection of his striking devotion to the 
mother he was so soon to lose, and the general im- 
pression made by his uniform amiability, which, in 
later years, deepened, by grace, into unusual loveli- 
ness of temper and character. The home of his 
childhood was that of a New England pastor of three 
quarters of a century since. The influences of relig- 
ion surrounded him from birth. Trained in the nur- 
ture and admonition of the Lord, the child of prayer 
and the covenant of baptism grew up piously, so- 
berly, and in the fear of God. 

Before he had reached the age of five years, his 
mother, whose beauty and affection he never forgot, 
was removed by death. It was the child's first sor- 
row, and when the last sad rites of sepulture were 
over, and the following day the orphaned boy was 
missed from home, he was found, late at night, weep- 
ing bitterly by the new-made grave. Unnoticed he 



2 MEMORIAL. 

had stolen away from the stricken household, and, at 
a spot ever dear to him, sought communion with the 
spirit of her who gave him birth. The remembrance 
of this early loss deepened with added years, and the 
recollection of the soft pressure of his mother's hand, 
laid lovingly upon his head in earliest childhood, was 
a restraining influence in after life. 

In the providence of God the vacant place in the 
home circle was ere long filled by one who, in her 
devotion to her step-children, deserved the fond 
affection with which they ever repaid her self-sacri- 
ficing love. The homestead never lost its attractions 
for each and all who were nurtured within its walls, 
and it is still a cherished spot, with precious remem- 
brances of the past. Quaint, old-fashioned, standing 
like a monument of earlier generations, amidst the 
hum and bustle of a thriving city, it carries back the 
mind to the days and scenes of years never to re- 
turn. Here, under the spreading branches of trees, 
now hoar with age, the village clergyman passed the 
busy years of his more than half-a-century settle- 
ment ; and here, amidst all the influences tending to 
purity, piety, and peace, the training of the subject of 
our sketch went on. If, in the absence of direct rem- 
iniscence, we may judge of this training by the story 
of the life, it was one of serious, earnest, faithful prep- 
aration for the coming duties of manhood ; and the 
boy, brought up in wisdom's ways of pleasantness, 
found no desire, in after days, to wander from her 
paths of peace. 

From the quiet parsonage-home under the spread- 
ing elms at Stamford, the youth went forth, at the 



MEMORIAL. 3 

age of sixteen, to College. Yale had been the Alma 
Mater of his father and father's fathers through 
several generations of an honored Puritan ancestry; 
and it was at Yale, in the autumn of 1812, during 
the closing years of President Dwight's incumbency, 
that he applied for admission as a member of the 
Freshman Class. Disciplined in mind, and fitted for 
the rough temptations of college life by the training 
and example of a Christian home, the four years of 
academic study and experience were marked by suc- 
cess, and rewarded at their close with honor. 

In a pleasant retrospect of college life, addressed 
to his classmate and friend, William Chauncy Fowler, 
LL. D., and written soon after his removal to Gam- 
bier, he alludes to these days as follows : — 

" I cannot describe to you the pleasure which I derived from see- 
ing your name at the close of a letter which I received some weeks 
ago. I was carried back in very thought to the time, now more 
than thirty years ago, when I used to meet you and my other be- 
loved classmates in the halls of Old Yale. How I found myself in 
the theological chambers with you, listening to the words of wisdom 
which fell from the lips of the venerable Dr. Dwight. The snuff- 
box, the straight-cut coat, the Doctor's noble countenance, the fire- 
place, the seats, the familiar faces, were just as we saw them in 
the days of yore. Then, we were down in the laboratory, under 
the Lyceum, and oxygen and hydrogen, the compound blow-pipe, 
Mr. Hare, Lavoisier, Gay-Lussac, and Thenard, Dr. Black and 
Sir Humphrey Davy, rolled from the oily tongue of our excellent 
professor of chemistry. 1 Then I found myself in the old Hall. 
The tutor's table was filled with the same men. The classes were 
arranged in the same order. The tables were crowded with the 
same students. The same cooks were in the kitchen. In short, the 
whole scene appeared just as it did when, a careless, thoughtless 
boy, I spent my four years in College." 

i The late Benjamin Silliman, M, D., LL. D. 



4 MEMORIAL. 

Those who spent these years of preparation with 
him, well remember his faithfulness to study and his 
rectitude of life. No fairer, purer, brighter record of 
boyhood and the passage into youth and manhood, 
could any of the numbers who thronged the halls of 
Yale with him present, and the promise of his after 
years was seen even before he attained maturity or 
went forth from the student's retirement to enter 
upon more active life. 

These years of study were years of stirring events 
in the political world, and more than once the stu- 
dent was summoned from his books to take his part, 
as a soldier, in preparation for expected or actual 
hostilities. But the seductions of a military career, 
or the fascinations of political life, had no charms for 
him, and. nothing could have withdrawn him from 
the devotion of all his powers to study but the call 
of God, heard from time to time in youth, and list- 
ened to before his graduation, bidding him conse- 
crate himself to the work of the ministry of recon- 
ciliation. 

This act of self-dedication was accompanied by no 
particular excitement, but was eminently characteris- 
tic of the quiet determination in following out convic- 
tions of truth that marked his whole career. The 
subject of personal religion, brought home to him by 
the faithfulness of a classmate, was neither novel nor 
unwelcome. In the midst of a deep and general in- 
terest pervading the College, and attended in the case 
of many with much that was visionary and enthusias- 
tic, he gave the matter that patient examination and 
persevering thought, that made his resolutions, when 



MEMORIAL. 

once formed, life-long in their influence. The turn- 
ing unto the Lord that he made was for time and 
for eternity. 

Kestraining the impatience so generally felt by 
graduates of our colleges to begin at once the 
professional preparation they have marked out, Mr. 
Smith resolved to give a year to private study before 
entering upon a theological course. This year, ever 
remembered with pleasure and satisfaction, was spent 
in his ancestral home at Sharon, with his mother's 
brother, the Hon. John Cotton Smith, LL. D., Gov- 
ernor of Connecticut, still remembered as among the 
most eminent of the Christian statesmen and gentle- 
men of his native commonwealth. Here, after the 
deep convictions of duty and the happy assurance of 
forgiveness that had attended the close of his college 
course had been tested by a Christian walk and con- 
versation, — with a clear apprehension of the plan 
of salvation, and a simple, trusting faith in Christ, 
the solemn step was publicly taken that numbered 
the young student forever on the Lord's side. In the 
village church of this beautiful town the open profes- 
sion of Christ was made, and his name enrolled as one 
of the flock to which, in earlier years, his grandfather, 
the Eev. Cotton Mather Smith, had long and success- 
fully ministered. And here, where were spent so 
many of those peculiarly happy hours, given of Gocl, 
at the opening of the religious life, to cheer the 
young pilgrim and incite him to boldness of faith and 
zealous activity of life, — in retirement, in study, in 
prayer, and, above all, in earnest Christian effort, — 
the life-work was definitely chosen, and preparation 



b MEMORIAL. 

for it begun. The preaching of Christ, and him cru- 
cified, was to be that work, and from the family man- 
sion at Sharon, and the society of his revered and 
most accomplished uncle, Mr. Smith, in 1817, went to 
Andover unusually furnished in mind and heart for 
the work before him. 

To a student so thorough and so enthusiastic as 
Mr. Smith, Andover, at the period of his residence, 
presented rare attractions, and the pleasant events 
of his Seminary course, added to others of later 
date, centring around the same place, were never 
forgotten. 

Immediately after the completion of the pre- 
scribed years of theological study, the ardent zeal of 
the young licentiate led him to engage in the work of 
home evangelization, and for more than a year he was 
busied in missionary work in the western section of 
New York. In that day, the trials and discomforts of 
preaching Christ in the comparatively new settlements 
of that portion of the country, were hardly inferior to 
those of the foreign missionary field, and the work of 
organizing churches and nourishing feeble parishes, 
and the searching out of the scattered and dispersed 
sheep of the fold, were attended with no little per- 
sonal annoyance as well as toil. Three months of 
this period were devoted to the town of Litchfield, 
near Utica, and the remainder was spent in neigh- 
boring townships, from Utica to Buffalo, where there 
were tokens of interest and success. It was a work 
of laying foundations that the young missionary had 
undertaken, but ere he left these scenes of his earliest 
ministerial labors, he was cheered by abundant evi- 



MEMORIAL. 7 

dences that his labor had not been in vain. Faithful 
and devoted in his work, commending his cause and 
himself to those among whom he toiled, he thus gave 
promise of an earnest and efficient ministry, and the 
memory of this year of active and exhausting mis- 
sionary effort has not yet died out among those to 
whom he bore the message of eternal life. 

After these missionary labors a year was passed in 
Andover. At this time it was the privilege of Mr. 
Smith to prepare for publication the course of theo- 
logical study of Dr. Woods, adding to the questions, 
as used in the routine of class instruction, a body of 
references to various standard treatises of divinity, 
attesting unusual familiarity with the subject, and 
adding to the volume great interest and value. Dur- 
ing this year, he also participated in the inauguration 
of a solemn observance, of itself enough to render 
his name worthy of continued remembrance. In 
connection with Drs. Woods and Porter and the 
Eev. Louis D wight, and in Professor Porter's study, 
in Andover, the annual service of special prayer for 
Colleges was begun, and to his latest day it was ob- 
served by Mr. Smith with peculiar fervor. During 
this period he assisted the Rev. Dr. Wisner, at the 
"Old South," in Boston, on Sundays, still continuing 
his residence and prosecuting his studies at Andover. 
Several parishes sought his services. A tutorship, in 
an important institution of learning, was offered him; 
and he was selected by one of our largest national 
religious societies to visit the Republic sof South 
America, with reference to the more successful prose- 
cution of its work in that quarter of the globe. 



8 MEMORIAL. 

At length a call to Portland seemed to him to indi- 
cate the will of God as to his future home, and in July, 
1822, his ministry in that beautiful town began. It 
was on the last day of July, when Portland wears its 
most attractive aspect, and its elm-lined streets must 
have brought home to the young licentiate's mind 
Stamford, New Haven, and Andover, his former 
homes, that the solemn services of the ordination 
took place. It was indeed an occasion of great in- 
terest. The Rev. Dr. Woods, the Abbott Professor of 
Christian Theology at Andover, preached the sermon 
from the text 2 Corinthians x. 4 : " For the weapons 
of our warfare are not carnal." The Rev. Mr. Cogs- 
well, of Saco, offered the opening prayer. The cel- 
ebrated Dr. Payson made the consecrating prayer. 
The Rev. Mr. Walker, of Danvers, gave the charge. 
Rev. Dr. Cummings, of Portland, gave the right hand 
of fellowship, and the amiable Dr. Nichols, pastor of 
the First Church, not then, as subsequently, Unita- 
rian in its belief, addressed the church and people. 

With what views and feelings Mr. Smith began his 
ministry may be inferred from the closing words ad- 
dressed to him by his revered instructor, Dr. Woods, 
who well knew how to counsel and encourage those 
entering upon the pastoral work. 

" My dear Brother : — You are now to engage actively in that 
warfare for which you have been many years preparing. Fail not 
to keep in mind what is the object of your warfare, and what are 
the weapons you are to use. Let all that you do in this sacred 
work be prompted and regulated by love. Cultivate faith, zeal, for- 
titude, and every Christian grace, — above all, love. Our God is a 
God of love ; the religion we preach is a religion of love ; and the 
heaven we seek is a heaven of love. Whatever difficulties and 



MEMORIAL. 9 

hardships you may have to endure, and whatever enemies to en- 
counter, never cease to maintain the spirit of love. Wrath, bitter- 
ness, violence, never did any good to the cause of Christ, and never 
will. They are weapons which do not belong to our warfare. The 
moment we use them, we turn traitors, and go over to the side of 
the enemy. 

" Whenever you find men ignorant or erroneous, labor to give 
them instruction. And whenever you give instruction, take pains to 
be understood. Endeavor to show others the real form of divine 
truth, just as it lies in your own mind, when you believe it the 
most strongly, and find its practical influence upon yourself the most 
salutary. Remember in what manner you yourself have been freed 
from hurtful misapprehensions and errors, and thus learn how others 
may be freed from the same. Remember, too, how sin has, by the 
grace of God, been subdued in your own heart, and thus learn how 
it is to be subdued in the hearts of others. 

"Amid all your labors and difficulties, indulge the animating re- 
flection, that the weapons of your warfare are not feeble and ineffi- 
cient, but mighty through God, to the pulling down of strongholds, 
casting down imaginations, and every high thing which exalteth it- 
self against the knowledge of God. In this, and in every place, sin 
has its strongholds, and will make powerful resistance against every 
attack. But the Word of God, in the hands of the Holy Spirit, 
has power to overcome its resistance, and to demolish all its strong- 
holds. Away, then, with every discouragement. Soldier of the 
Cross, go forward. Look to your divine Leader. Hear His voice. 
Take hold on His everlasting strength. Strive to bring His enemies 
to His feet, and to enlarge His empire. Earthly victories and joys 
are all vanity. But to bring one sinner to repentance, to win one 
soul to Christ, is a victory and a joy worthy of a Christian minis- 
ter. Among the dear people of your charge, may you have this 
victory and this joy a thousand times repeated. Let the hope of 
this cheer your heart and excite your unceasing efforts. Those 
who are enlisted in a war against God and His truth, may well be 
dismayed, and may fret and rave in view of their approaching over- 
throw. But not so with you. The Captain of Salvation is almighty. 
Fear not, then ; your humble prayers shall be answered, and your 
labors be crowned with success. 
2 



10 MEMORIAL. 

" And now, beloved brother, may the grace of the Lord Jesus 
Christ be with you. And when you come to the close of your min- 
istry, may you be able humbly to say: "I have fought a good fight, 
I have finished my course, 1 have kept the faith. Henceforth there is 
laid up for me a crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the right- 
eous Judge, will give me at that day" 

Faithfully and fully were these wise counsels 
heeded, and untiringly did the young pastor labor in 
his work. On the 26th of the following September 
Mr. Smith was married to Mary Greenleaf Woods, 
eldest daughter of the Rev. Leonard Woods, D. D., of 
Andover. His ministry in Portland was abundantly 
blessed of God. The memory of his Sunday services 
and pastoral visits is fragrant still in the hearts of liv- 
ing disciples who trace to them their first religious 
impressions or their quickening unto a new life in 
Christ. And all this work, so faithful, so constant, 
and so arduous, — the raising of a struggling parish 
from the depression attendant upon feebleness and 
comparative poverty to strength and influence among 
older and more popular religious organizations, — 
was accomplished in the midst of severe illness, con- 
sequent upon the severity of the climate, and after a 
struggle of two years, compelling an unwilling relin- 
quishment of the field. 

Tenderly was the remembrance of the zeal and 
labor of these opening years of Mr. Smith's ministry 
cherished by those to whom he ministered, and on 
this spot, where his first years of ministerial life and 
marriage were spent, and his first-born saw the light, 
it was the will of God that he should long afterwards 
lay his armor down and enter upon the rest that 



MEMORIAL. 11 

remaineth for the people of God. No successor was 
chosen by the Chapel Church and Society on the res- 
ignation of Mr. Smith. Dispirited at the loss of their 
chosen minister, and feeling pecuniarily unable to 
make for one less beloved the sacrifices and effort 
they had delighted to make for him, they, without 
dissolving their organization, were in effect merged 
into a new parish, which, for many years subsequently, 
was ministered to by the Kev. Dr. William T. D wight, 
who was for years an attached friend of his prede- 
cessor, and with less than a year's interval, followed 
him to the tomb. 

Returning with wife and child to Andover, to which 
place his fondest thoughts ever reverted, he was able, 
though still ill, to officiate from Sunday to Sunday, 
without, however, taking a parish for a year. During 
this interval of rest, he received calls from several 
parishes, among them one offering him again a home 
by the sea,, and another from one of the most attrac- 
tive of the inland towns of Massachusetts. At length, 
with health and strength restored, he was led of God 
to undertake the exercise of his ministry in Fall 
River, where he remained for five years. During this 
period a continuous religious interest attended his 
preaching. Beginning with the awakening of an 
occasional hearer sitting in the gallery of his church, 
it pervaded the parish, and at no period of this interest- 
ing pastorate were there not some inquiring, " What 
shall I do to be saved ? " Parents, children, and grand- 
children came together to profess their faith in Christ 
before men ; and a community hitherto noted for its 
disregard of religion, felt the leavening influence of 



12 MEMORIAL. 

this work of God. The strong attachments, arising 
from the faithfulness of the pastor and its influences 
of good, attest, after the lapse of many years, the suc- 
cess of this period of Mr. Smith's ministry. 

Profitable and pleasant would it be to cull, from the 
many interesting letters of this time, some of the ref- 
erences to this state of religious feeling, but the want 
of space forbids. An extract here and there must 
suffice. From one of his earliest letters, addressed 
from his new field of labor, we take the following 
passage, throwing, as it does, abundant light upon the 
work as it appeared to the young pastor, and the 
spirit with which he entered upon it. 

"August 20, 1826. 
..." I have not had before to-day, a fair opportunity of exam- 
ining the scenery here. And as I stood by my chamber-window 
this morning, and looked down upon the beautiful bay and river, 
and beheld, directly opposite, the charming country covered with 
green, and filled with rich farms and houses and trees, with the 
steeples in Providence, and the high lands beyond ; and at the 
south, the summit of Mount Hope, looking like the presiding genius 
of the scene, — oh, thought I, what a beautiful world is this, and 
how kind is God in giving to His creatures so goodly a spot to dwell 
in ! The morning was remarkably still. The clatter of wheels and 
spindles and trip-hammers was hushed. It was the Sabbath too, 
the day on which the Redeemer rose, and on which His gospel was 
to be preached to a world lying in sin ; and it seemed as if He was 
looking down in mercy on the creatures for whom He died. It 
was, take it altogether, the most beautiful morning I ever beheld, 
and it appeared to me as if the sun never shone upon a scene more 
delightful. For a lover of natural scenery, here is that which 
will gratify him. But the moral aspect of the place and the coun- 
try is deplorable indeed. I can look down upon this bay, and the 
beautiful country, and all is quiet. A few rods down the street, 
and my eyes are pained with the sight of reeling intemperance and 



MEMORIAL. 13 

fighting and every thing that is bad, and my ear is shocked with 
horrid oaths and imprecations. Here, the god of this world is wor- 
shipped with a devotion which I have never witnessed in any other 
place. But there are a few who do love Christ ; and who weep 
in secret over the wickedness of this people. Last evening I got 
the church together, and talked with them about a revival of relig- 
ion, and they appeared very solemn indeed. And to-day this little 
meeting-house has been pretty well filled with very attentive and 
apparently solemn hearers. If God should pour out His Spirit 
here, it would put a new face upon the moral aspect of this place." 

Again and again are these and other indications of 
the worldliness and profligacy so prevalent in this 
town referred to in Mr. Smith's correspondence, but 
soon a brighter chapter is begun, and incidents of 
unusual interest are detailed attesting the presence 
of God with His people. The earnest self-sacrificing 
spirit of the new pastor, the fervor of his prayers, the 
pungency of his preaching, awakening remonstrance 
at first, and then listened to as the voice of Heaven, 
all were blessed of God by a remarkable reviving of 
His work in this place. Its results, as we have said, 
were permanent. They still exist to the praise of 
Him who thus blessed the labors of His minister. 
The field of labor, physically so beautiful, morally so 
vile, yielded abundant harvestings of righteousness ; 
and the pastorate, thus continuously owned and hon- 
ored by God in the salvation of souls, is one never to 
be forgotten in the place where it was exercised, and 
above " He that winneth souls and turneth many to 
righteousness," shall " shine as the stars for ever and 
ever." 

While quietly and successfully engaged in his work 
at Fall Eiver, a call from the beautiful town of Cats- 



14 MEMORIAL. 

kill, New York, required consideration, and was, after 
prayerful deliberation, accepted. Hard indeed was 
it to sunder the ties binding him to a devoted people, 
but the finger of God seemed to indicate the path of 
duty and to make the way smooth. On the 15th of 
June, 1831, the solemn services of the Installation 
took place in the Presbyterian Church, and the occa- 
sion was invested with peculiar interest by the pres- 
ence and participation in the exercises of Mr. Smith's 
venerable father and father-in-law. The Eev. Dr. 
Woods preached the sermon, which was published, 
and from its closing personal address, we append the 
following attestation of the success of his son-in- 
law's past ministry, and the bright presages he saw 
of future reward and blessing. 

" And you, my dear son, can add your testimony to the truth of 
the sentiment contained in my text. 1 Your own experience, during 
the short period of your ministry, has been sufficient to teach you 
thoroughly, what the Bible had taught you before, that a minister 
owes his success entirely to God. While laboring among the affec- 
tionate and beloved people whom you have lately left, you have at 
different times enjoyed the happiness of beholding sinners pressing 
into the kingdom of Heaven, and large numbers added to the church. 
And on every conversion you have witnessed, you have seen it 
written, as with a sunbeam, — the work of God! And, when, in 
sovereign wisdom and righteousness, God has withheld the influence 
of His Spirit, you have found that no efforts of yours, in public or 
in private, could avail any thing ; that in despite of all the terrors of 
divine wrath, and all the melting persuasions of divine mercy, sin- 
ners would neglect the great salvation. You have learnt by expe- 
rience that men must be born again ; — must be born, not of 
blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God. 
There is no other way for sinners to become heirs of heaven. There 
never will be any other w r ay. For us to suppose that we can find out 

i 1 Corinthians iii. 7. 



MEMORIAL. 15 

a new way, or that there can be a new way, is all delusion. The 
human heart is essentially the same in all ages ; and the power 
which renews it is the same ; and that power is not the power of 
motives ; it is not the power of reason, nor the power of self-love, 
nor the power of human persuasion ; but the mighty power of God, — 
the power which raised Christ from the dead; the power which 
caused the light to shine out of darkness ; the power which created 
the world. The labors and prayers of His servants are important, 
because He sees fit to make use of them as means of salvation. But 
He makes use of these means, not to supersede or conceal His 
agency, but to manifest and exalt it. Remember this, my dear 
son, in the encouraging and delightful circumstances in which you 
are now called to labor. If any of the dear children and youth in 
this place, or others farther advanced in life, have an ear to hear 
the messages of divine mercy, it is because God has given them 
an ear. If they have a heart to understand and love the truth, it is 
because God has given them such a heart. Never forget this. It 
is a radical truth, essential to the glory of God, and the welfare of 
the Church. If you overlook this (which may divine grace pre- 
vent) ; if while the work of conversion and sanctification is pro- 
gressing, you forget that it is God's work, and that all spiritual bless- 
ings come from Him ; and if His people in this place become un- 
mindful of the high obligations they are under to infinite and sover- 
eign mercy ; the Lord, in righteous judgment, will withhold the 
tokens of His favor. No rain or dew will descend from heaven ; 
and you will soon behold these trees, now covered with blossoms, 
withering and dying, and this garden of God, now beginning to 
cluster with the fruits of the Spirit, left to blasting and barrenness. 
Remember, then, that salvation is of God. Look to Him as the 
fountain of all good. Acknowledge and feel, that without Him you 
can do nothing ; that your preaching will all be in vain, unless He 
is graciously present to give efficacy to the truth. In every part 
of your sacred work, rely entirely upon His almighty grace. And 
begin and end the labors of every week, and the labors of your 
ministry here, with a deep feeling of the blessed truth, that " neither 
he that planteth is any thing, nor he that watereth ; hut God that 
giveth the increase" 



16 MEMORIAL. 

The venerable father of Mr. Smith delivered the 
charge to his 

" Dear son and brother, — dear to my heart in both the relations 
which these appellations indicate, but particularly so, as a fellow- 
servant and fellow-laborer in the vineyard of our common Master." 

The charge to the people was given by the Eev. 
David Porter, D. D., their retiring pastor. It gives 
most abnndant attestations to the singular unanimity 
of the choice of Mr. Smith, the unusual success of his 
ministry during the eight weeks of his labor prior to 
his formal installation, and to the acceptance with 
which his successor was regarded by this venerable 
man. Full of joy at the bright prospects opening be- 
fore his beloved people, he, by special vote, confirmed 
their choice, and was thus formally released from his 
pastorate, and the words of welcome addressed to 
him who was to fill his place are beyond praise. 

Here again, under circumstances most pleasant to 
a clergyman's heart, was the home reestablished, and 
the household altar raised. Here, as had been earlier 
seen at Fall River and Portland, the model of a Chris- 
tian home was daily exhibited, and the devotion of a 
Christian father to wife and children most attractively 
displayed. And here the same careful preparations 
for the pulpit, the same earnest and persevering pas- 
toral oversight, the same faithful and continued pray- 
ers, marked the new incumbency that had, with God's 
blessing, made successful each preceding one. The 
most pleasant thoughts ever clustered around the fine 
old parsonage, where so many hours of happy family 
and ministerial experience were spent. On his jour- 



MEMORIAL. 17 

neys, home was ever the loadstone, whither the nee- 
dle of his being and affections turned. While away, 
whether among the scenes of his earlier days, or sur- 
rounded by the attractions of the intellectual or 
commercial centres of the land, he was never satis- 
fied ; and business was hastened and duty performed 
with no laggard steps, when home was out of sight. 
Devoted to his work, attached to his people, most 
happy in all the domestic relations of life, and wit- 
nessing on every side tokens of usefulness and appre- 
ciation, it is no wonder that Catskill became endeared 
to him as the spot where many of his holiest and 
happiest memories centered, and that to the last of 
earth these precious reminiscences afforded him com- 
fort and joy. 

Eight years passed very swiftly in this pleasant 
home at the foot of the Catskills ; and at their close 
Mr. Smith was called to the East again. An impor- 
tant parish in New Bedford required a clergyman, 
and averse as he was to change of ministerial rela- 
tions, there were circumstances connected with the 
call indicating the will of God that it should be 
obeyed. The Great Head of the Church was even 
then leading him by a way he knew not, to other 
and higher duties in a new and unlooked-for sphere. 

In New Bedford were passed the last three years of 
Mr. Smith's pastoral life. They were the least happy 
years of his ministry. His labors were hindered and 
his usefulness lessened by the introduction among his 
people of " revival " measures of a nature distasteful 
to his sober and matured judgment. This, done in 
opposition to his wishes, and in a manner most trying 



18 MEMORIAL. 

to his feelings, occasioned a difference of feeling be- 
tween pastor and people, and served to awaken in the 
mind of the pastor serious doubts as to the character 
of the system of ecclesiastical polity under which he 
had been trained. The tumultuous and often undig- 
nified church-meetings, with their petty bickerings 
and discussions, and their tendency to hasty and ill- 
judged decisions, seemed to him undesirable, and his 
admiration for the discipline of the Protestant Epis- 
copal Church grew daily with every fresh outburst of 
the so-called " revival." 

At length, weary of the strife into which he had 
been so unexpectedly and unwillingly plunged, he 
felt called upon to resign his parish and to give to 
the subject of Episcopacy, so evidently forced upon 
his notice, his unfettered thought. Accepting a tem- 
porary post in the service of the American Sunday 
School Union, in which he labored with his usual 
ability and success, he removed to Boston and spent a 
year ere his doubts were resolved and his convictions 
fully decided as to the scriptural warrant for the 
claims of Episcopacy. Connected as he was, by an- 
cestry and family, education and friendship, lifelong 
and most binding, with the Puritan faith and disci- 
pline, it was a step of no slight moment. Once made, 
it became a source of deep comfort, and was never 
regretted. In the Episcopal Church, he found all 
that he desired. 

In connection with the record of this change, so 
marked, and exciting, as it did, such general atten- 
tion, we cannot refrain from giving the following let- 
ter respecting it, written by the excellent Bishop of 
Massachusetts, to whom, as a candidate for holy 



MEMORIAL. 19 

orders, Mr. Smith soon applied, and with whom an 
intimate friendship was ever maintained unbroken 
until death. 

" Boston, July 20, 1865. 
. . . " In calling up my first intercourse with Dr. Smith, at the 
time when he offered himself as a candidate for the ministry of our 
Church, I remember the great satisfaction I had in the motives 
which seemed to govern him in taking that step. His mind ap- 
peared to be in a thoroughly well-balanced condition in reference 
to the whole subject. I have observed with pain the tendency to 
extreme views of Episcopacy and the Sacraments, and also to an 
exaggerated Ritualism, in many men who enter our Church from 
other ecclesiastical organizations. They lose sight of the wise 
moderation of our standards, and are possessed with the zeal of 
novices w r hich is ' not according to knowledge.' Polity and cere- 
monials seem to be the one object before their eye, while that great 
doctrine of salvation for perishing sinners through the righteousness 
of the Redeemer, which our Reformers preached, for which they 
gave up their lives, and which it was their chief aim to incorporate 
with our liturgy and standards, but faintly attracts their regard. 
Now, in distinction from such as these, I recollect very well that Dr. 
Smith, while I conversed with him at that period, impressed me 
with a high sense of the soundness of his spiritual judgment. He 
expressed, it is true, the warmest admiration of that system of 
government by law in our Church, which is liberty without licen- 
tiousness ; and of its wonderful order of worship, as fitted to nourish 
humility, reverence, fear of God, and respect for sacred places, 
among all ages and classes ; and, in short of every thing in it 
which marks it as a noble and august structure, gloriousto contem- 
plate. But I also remember distinctly that his heart seemed to 
delight in our Church, mainly because it was a Church in whose 
formularies Christ is enthroned ; and that he expressed the happi- 
ness he felt in the prospect of working within a Communion, whose 
'form of sound words' keeps men fastened, as with an anchor, to the 
Lord Jesus, as ' all our salvation, and all our desire.' 

" Perceiving this wholesome state of his mind, I recollect perfectly 
with what feelings of security I looked forward to Dr. Smith's 
ordination ; and how often I thought and said, that here was a man 



20 MEMORIAL. 

who would prove a gain to our ministerial ranks. It was not my 
privilege to admit him to Deacon's Orders, owing to a severe illness, 
which compelled me to request the Bishop of Kentucky to act in 
my stead. But nearly twenty years ago, and soon after his appoint- 
ment to the Milnor Professorship, I ordained him priest in St. 
Paul's, Boston ; and, as I saw him, after this period, only occasion- 
ally, and his field of labor was at a long distance from me, others 
are more qualified than I to speak, with minuteness and discrimina- 
tion, of his subsequent career. I know, however, from the testimony 
of many, that it justified all my expectations, formed on personal 
observation of his character and views. And I am quite sure it 
will be said by all who knew him, that the more they knew him 
the more they revered him as a ripe theologian, and a person emi- 
nently fitted to instruct and guide those who were to be our clergy, 
and a meek, humble, and most consistent servant of God. Happy 
would it be for our Church, could all who enter its ministry be 
found possessed of the clear views of Protestant truth, the modera- 
tion, the attainments, and the heavenly mind of the departed Pro- 
fessor of Divinity at Gambier." 

It is with no slight satisfaction that we can add that, 
in these views of duty, Mr. Smith had finally the full- 
est approval of his distinguished father-in-law, Dr. 
Woods, who himself, just before his death, and for the 
last time on earth, received at Trinity Church, Bos- 
ton, with his daughter and her husband, the Holy 
Communion, at the hands of Bishop Eastburn. 

In connection with the circumstance, referred to 
in Bishop Eastburn's letter, of Mr. Smith's ordina- 
tion by the Bishop of Kentucky, we add, from a let- 
ter written by that venerable prelate, the following 
noticeable words : — 

..." The sincerity and manliness which led Mr. Smith to pre- 
fer to consummate the transition (from Congregationalism to Epis- 
copacy) in the midst of his former people, 1 awakened in my bosom 

1 The ordination took place at New Bedford. 



MEMORIAL. 21 

an admiration for his character fully confirmed by his subsequent 
career." 

The accession to the ministry of the Episcopal 
Church of one whose character, position, and abilities 
precluded the imputation of any other than conscien- 
tious motives in making the change, attracted no 
little attention. The newly ordained deacon was 
immediately in quest for services in Massachusetts 
and elsewhere, and the sound, strong preaching, 
which, as a Congregationalist, was often deemed se- 
vere, and had been met with remonstrance from his 
hearers, proved highly acceptable in the new relations 
in which Mr. Smith now found himself. Preferring, 
for a time at least, to remain unconnected with a 
parish, he officiated with great acceptance in Eastern 
Massachusetts, and found himself obliged to decline a 
number of flattering invitations from parishes desirous 
of securing so able and so faithful a pastor. As the 
period of his diaconate drew near its close, the finger 
of God clearly indicated the path of duty for him 
to follow. He had always been passionately fond of 
the study of systematic divinity. During his various 
pastorates he had almost always one or more young 
men in his house and family, whose preparation for 
the ministry he superintended. And now when cast- 
ing about in mind for the Heaven-appointed field of 
labor, — unsought and almost without his knowledge, 
— the nomination to the Divinity Professorship in the 
Diocesan Theological Seminary at Gambier, Ohio, was 
tendered him in such a manner, and with such evi- 
dent indications of the moving of the hand of God, 
that its acceptance seemed imperatively required. 



22 MEMORIAL 

Honorable as the appointment was, it involved no 
little sacrifice and pains. Closely bound to the east- 
ward by social and family ties, urged to remain in 
Massachusetts, having had tendered him at the same 
time an important pastoral charge in Philadelphia, and 
almost ignorant of the distant institution to which he 
was to devote the service of a life, nothing but the 
evident promptings of duty decided him. Home was 
to be left far behind. A long and trying absence from 
his family, with increasing years nearer and dearer 
than ever, must be endured. The many intellectual 
and social privileges of the older and well-established 
communities of the seaboard were to be sacrificed. It 
was a pioneer work — thankless, toilsome, and trying 
— he was called upon to undertake. Gambier had 
scarcely emerged from the wilderness at the period 
of which we speak. There were but the foundations 
of things laid; the superstructure was yet to be 
raised. Society was unformed. The students of a 
College and Seminary, numbering less than a score of 
years — many of them gathered from points even 
more remote and consequently less advanced than 
Gambier — required constant care, and demanded a 
combination of qualities in their instructors few could 
supply. The struggle with inadequate means, the 
lack of books of reference, and the fresh appliances 
for investigation, and the incentives to study furnished 
by older institutions, had to be taken into the account. 
An isolation we in these days of railroad communica- 
tion and telegraphic facilities can hardly imagine, was 
to be borne; and mails must be often delayed by 
reason of the "roads," and appointments fail when 



MEMORIAL. 23 

most important. Privations, most perplexing and 
annoying, even when most trivial, and often rising to 
the nature of trials heavy to be borne, could not be 
warded off. A little family was to be brought where 
the opportunities for intellectual development were 
of a scanty character, and the privileges of social 
intercourse necessarily of a limited extent. The ex- 
posure of health in a new and untried climate, the 
subjection to a state of society utterly unlike that 
at the East, all added to the difficulties of a post 
undesirable and arduous, even under the most favor- 
able circumstances. 

But the trials attendant upon his acceptance of 
this important position were far from discouraging 
Mr. Smith. He had never counted ease or selfish in- 
terests in his ministry. He did not now. He had 
ever sought to spend and be spent in the Master's 
work, and now he did not shrink from the task to 
which he had been called. Singly and simply seek- 
ing the glory of God and the good of souls, he ac- 
cepted the appointment, and alone set out on his 
westward journey. 

That journey was far from being, as now, a matter 
of a few hours, but by rail, stage, canal and carriage, 
was wearying and long. It was undertaken under 
many peculiar disadvantages. Mr. Smith was not 
physically strong, and the exposure and fatigue un- 
derwent upon this wilderness journey was not only 
dreaded in antipation, but also found painful enough 
in the reality, and head and heart ached sorely ere 
the end was reached. 

At length the weary miles were passed, and Gam- 



24 MEMOEIAL. 

bier appeared in view. To his wife he addressed, in 
brief, his first impressions : — 

"You would hardly suppose Kenyon College was not yet twenty 
years old. The building has the appearance of an old monastery 
of the Middle Ages ; and when 1 hear the sound of the old English 
bell as it swings in the tower, I almost expect to see a train of 
cowled monks coming out from among the trees, and marching in 
solemn procession to the Chapel. But there are no monks there. 
The College looks better in the plate than it does on the ground ; 
Bexley Hall better on the ground than in the plate." 

It was winter when he arrived, the close of 1845. 
Cordially welcomed by the Bishop of Ohio, who then 
occupied the Episcopal residence at Harcourt Place, 
agreeably disappointed in finding so promising an in- 
stitution in the midst of the primeval forest, and 
kindly received by professors and students alike, he 
was not idle for a moment, but entered vigorously 
into his chosen work. Again addressing his wife, he 
says : — 

"I cannot tell you any thing about Gambier now. The ground is 
covered with snow, and the weather has been dismal ever since I 
have been here. Such weather, I am told, has never occurred here 
before Christmas until this season. Our house is very pleasantly 
situated in the midst of a grove, and must be almost entirely con- 
cealed in summer. It stands very near Bexley Hall. The Chapel 
is finished very prettily; and the Bishop and I shall officiate in turn 
for the present. At our Faculty Meeting last evening we made the 
following arrangement for me : — The Senior Class I meet in Sys- 
tematic Divinity every day except Saturday, at half-past three 
o'clock, and the Junior Class in the Greek Testament and interpre- 
tation, on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, at ten a. m. The 
President of the College had commenced with the class in Hebrew, 
and proposed, if I had no objection, to continue with them, tuat 
he might revive his knowledge of Hebrew. The arrangement 



MEMORIAL. 25 

was of course very acceptable to me. Every Monday evening we 
have a Faculty Meeting in the Library at half-past six, so you 
may think of me at that time. On Sunday evening the Bishop 
has a social religious meeting with the students in the lecture-room. 
The religious aspect of the students is very far in advance of any 
thing of the kind at Andover. So far every thing is very pleas- 
ant." 

Thus was begun the work of Professor Smith at 
Gambier. To the duties devolving upon his office he 
devoted himself with an absorbing energy. It was 
not his nature to rest content with slight attainments ; 
and few are aware, other than the members of his 
own family, who recall the patient and protracted 
studies, the earnest seekings of heavenly guidance, 
and the efforts, too much, alas, for his overtaxed 
frame, at what cost of mental and bodily toil that 
rare facility in communicating knowledge was ob- 
tained, that made Professor Smith preeminent as a 
teacher in sacred things. 

The year 1845 closed upon Professor Smith under 
circumstances peculiarly interesting. It had wit- 
nessed his accession to the "higher degree" of the 
Presbyterate in the Church of his new-born love. It 
had brought to him many evidences of regard and 
interest from the communion he had so lately joined, 
and as its last days came round, he was busied in a 
work most honorable and arduous, and a work rarely 
committed to one so recently a member of a Church 
whose ministers he was chosen to train. His own 
words in a letter to his wife, indicate the holy 
thoughts and high aspirations with which he en- 
gaged in the work to which he had been called. 

4 



26 MEMORIAL. 

" This has been a solemn day with me. I read the service this 
morning and administered the communion, assisted by the Bishop, 
who preached the sermon. This afternoon I preached. I wish you 
could hear the Bishop. He is certainly a very remarkable preacher. 
I have seldom heard a man who was so eloquent in the best sense 
of the term, and at the same time so simple and so faithful. His 
text was, ' The entrance of Thy word giveth light.' This he illus- 
trated in various ways. His account of Luther's finding a neglected 
Bible in the monastery at Erfurt, and its influence on his own mind 
and heart, and the flood of light which was poured upon the world 
by the Reformation, was extremely eloquent. But the manner in 
which he related the anecdote of poor Joseph, mentioned in one of 
the tracts, who was almost an idiot, and who never could be made 
to learn but one passage of Scripture, ' " It is a faithful saying, and 
worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to 
save sinners," — to save poor Joseph,' was touching beyond all de- 
scription. My intercourse with the Bishop and his family is very 
pleasant. I already love him much. I love him for his consistent, 
devoted Christian life. I love him, too, for his firm attachment to 
the truth, and for the bold, and decided, and Luther-like stand which 
he takes and maintains against the errors which have come in like 
a flood upon the Church. And I consider it no small recommen- 
dation that all the common people in the parish love him. 

" I have never felt so solemn a responsibility resting upon me 
during the whole of my ministry, as I have since I have been here. 
I am preaching the Gospel not to a single congregation, but to I 
know not how many congregations. I am assisting in preparing 
young men to preach the Gospel, who will be the better or the worse 
for my instructions, and on whom I must exert an influence which 
will continue while the world stands. How often, when I have been 
going up to the Seminary, has the thought come over me, ' Who is 
sufficient for these things ? ' I need more grace than I have ever 
had ; and I try, I think, more than ever before, to sit down at the feet 
of Jesus and learn of Him. May His Spirit teach me that I may 
teach the young men who are committed to my instruction. I am 
sure I have the prayers of my sweet wife that it may be so." 

Strength thus sought was not withheld. Wisdom 
thus asked of God was given liberally, and but a few 



MEMORIAL. 27 

months passed ere the Bishop, who had anxiously 
awaited the result, wrote privately to the Rev. Dr. 
Tyng his congratulations on the success of the new 
professor, whose especial fitness to the post the rector 
of St. George's, New York, had so warmly predicted. 

The new year, with the incoming of spring, brought 
to Gambier Mrs. Smith and the daughters of the 
family, Mary and Sarah, — John Cotton, the only son, 
named for the beloved uncle with whom his father 
had spent so pleasantly the year after graduation, 
remaining at the East, where he was completing his 
collegiate course at Bowdoin. The house of the 
Milnor Professor, so often described and referred to in 
the family letters, was made a home by the presence 
of these loved ones, and again the family ties and 
pleasures so dear to Professor Smith were enjoyed 
under western skies and in this so distant a spot from 
the scenes of his early life. 

It was not long, however, before one great attrac- 
tion in Gambier was removed. The beloved Bishop, 
whose kindly welcome to his new home was never 
forgotten, and for whose character and abilities Pro- 
fessor Smith ever cherished the fullest love and ad- 
miration, removed to Cincinnati, and the pleasant 
associations and family intimacies which had been so 
great a source of satisfaction, were necessarily broken, 
to be imperfectly renewed, however, by constant 
letters, and by such intercourse as was sought most 
assiduously by each on occasions of mutual visits. 

But new friends were found to take somewhat the 
place of these earlier ones, and the years of unre- 
mitted toil passed swiftly and successfully by. The 



28 MEMORIAL. 

only son graduating at Bowdoin under the presidency 
of his uncle, the Eev. Leonard Woods, D. D., sought 
at Bexley Hall the needed preparation for the 
ministry he had chosen as his life-work. Soon came 
the first separation in the home circle, and the eldest 
daughter found in the far East a new home, where 
her father and mother began their married life. 
Gradually the influence of the unassuming labors 
and the pains-taking fidelity of the Milnor Professor 
gained for the school a reputation and regard. The 
earnest and unflagging effort, the conscientious de- 
votion to the work he had in hand, the clear and 
unequivocal enunciation of the great truths and prin- 
ciples of the Gospel, the firm, full devotion to the 
standards and teaching of our Church, and the marked 
ability of the course of study through which his 
students were most faithfully borne, could not fail of 
notice, and ere long elicited for the institution a gen- 
eral approval and a uniform support. Day by day, 
in the quiet little study shaded by the tall trees, or 
in that pleasant recitation room looking out upon the 
broad path at the end of which old Kenyon stood 
like a bulwark of defence, or else in the library 
chapel, where the clear full voice of the Professor was 
now almost lost in the fervor of devotion, or else 
thrilling in its bold and masterly defence of truths 
assailed or arguments impugned, — this tireless work 
went on, interrupted only by the annual visit east- 
ward during the summer vacation, or by the added 
cares of filling vacancies in other departments of the 
seminary or college course. Himself a scholar in the 
truest sense of the term, loving knowledge for its 



MEMORIAL. 29 

own sake, and revelling in investigation and research 
wherever there was need, he could turn his efforts 
and tact in the college and the school, fill with ability 
and success the posts that were unfilled, and thus 
give efficiency and completeness where the need was 
most urgent and pressing. An extract from a hur- 
ried letter of the Bishop's, on the resignation of one 
of the professors, is but one of many illustrations 
of the ready and willing support Professor Smith 
was able to give the institutions at Gambier, under 
difficulties incidental to their recent origin, and the 
limited range afforded them from which to draw in- 
struction suited to their needs: — 

"In regard to instruction in the professorship vacated by Dr. 
Brooks, I will thank you to teach Porter's ' Homiletics,' Compo- 
sition of Sermons in general, to exercise the students in reading the 
Liturgy and Scriptures, and to teach Bishop Meade's ' Lectures on 
the Pastoral Office,' and ' Bridges on the Ministry.' I will try to 
make up the rest, unless we get a professor of Pastoral Divinity 
before summer." 

This was in addition to the usual duties of the 
Milnor Professorship, and besides recitations in "But- 
ler's Analogy" from the Seniors in College, and fre- 
quent pulpit ministrations in Kosse Chapel. 

It was at a most eventful and critical epoch in the 
history of Kenyon College that Professor Smith was 
chosen to the presidency. Largely endowed, through 
the wise forethought of its venerated founder, Bishop 
Philander Chase, with a wide domain of lands, the 
institution had suffered from the loss of its founder's 
oversight and jealous care ; from frequent changes in 
its officers and the difficulty of securing the instruct- 



30 MEMORIAL. 

ors suited to its wants, and from the insuperable dif- 
ficulty of meeting current expenses with an insuf- 
ficient revenue, depleted as even that revenue was 
with the charges incident upon the landed property 
of the institution. The State itself had failed to 
attain that dense population anticipated by Bishop 
Chace. New fields beyond, new states and terri- 
tories, invited settlers, and the Bishop's favorite plan 
of surrounding the College with a landed tenantry, 
had failed utterly of success. The indebtedness of 
Kenyon increased daily, and with this increase there 
came a lessening in the number of students, a weari- 
ness at the East to answer its appeals for help, and 
a fearful prospect that these institutions, founded in 
faith and prayer, must pass out of existence, or be 
so crippled by parting with their estates as never to 
realize the fond hopes of those who had labored so 
long for their success. 

In the providence of God, the Milnor Professor of 
Divinity was called to the presidential chair. He 
took it reluctantly, and with the avowed purpose of 
relinquishing it at the earliest possible moment, 
deeming his especial work to be in the Seminary and 
not in the College. But at the urgent request of the 
Bishop and Board of Trustees he accepted this added 
charge and responsibility, and began at once to infuse 
into the institution the energy which marked all his 
work. Quietly, and without observation, almost, 
order began to come out of chaos. The vexed ques- 
tions with reference to the disposal of the College 
lands found a solution acceptable to all concerned. 
The discipline of the institution improved at once. 



MEMORIAL. 31 

Who could, even though thoughtless and impatient 
of restraint, wound the feelings of that thorough 
gentleman, who was ever considerate of the feelings of 
even the youngest student ? Turbulent students 
found themselves under firm and inexorable restraint. 
The befitting accompaniments of scholastic garb 
made their appearance at the Commencements, and 
had their share in imparting dignity to these occa- 
sions. Great care was shown in the disposition of 
collegiate honors, and the nomination of professors 
was made the reward of scholarship and eminence in 
the department of letters they were designed to teach. 
But it would be impossible to give, even in brief, the 
details of these important years, during which Ken- 
yon emerged from her deepest depression and began 
to take the noble preeminence among western col- 
leges she has since maintained. The work accom- 
plished must be its own blazon, and that it was done 
so faithfully and so unostentatiously, with all the 
crowding duties of another and a more highly loved 
and honored calling claiming its right to the pres- 
ident-professor's time, must ever enhance Dr. Smith 
in the grateful memory of friends and graduates of 
Kenyon. 

Wearied with the accumulation of cares, Dr. Smith 
embraced the earliest moment, consistent with his 
sense of duty, to lay this added burden down. His 
letter to the Trustees resigning the presidency, is 
both interesting in what it says, and valuable as at- 
testing the singularly unselfish spirit that marked all 
his life. It is the outspoken language of one who 
sought not honor nor emolument, but usefulness, and 



32 MEMORIAL. 

who was content to do or be all things to all men 
that he might in any way advance the interests of 
churchly education in the West, to which he had 
given his life a willing offering. 

" Gambiek, Oct. 25th, 1853. 

" Rt. Rev. and dear Sir : — When I very reluctantly accepted 
the office of President of Kenyon College, which I have held for the 
last three years, it was with the understanding that when the funds 
of the institution should warrant the payment of a full salary, and a 
suitable person could be obtained for the office, I might be permitted 
to retire and devote myself exclusively to the duties of my profes- 
sorship in the Theological Seminary. The financial state of the 
College is at present such as to render a compliance with the first 
condition no longer a matter of doubt ; and with the offer of such a 
salary as the Trustees can now afford to make, there can be but lit- 
tle difficulty, I presume, in finding a suitable person for the office. 

" The union of the two offices — that of professor in the Theological 
Seminary and president and professor in the College, the duties of 
either of which are sufficient for one man, has imposed upon me a bur- 
den which I have found it difficult to sustain. While the institution 
was straitened in respect to funds, it gave me great pleasure to labor 
with my colleagues, as far as my strength would allow, in their self- 
denying efforts to promote the prosperity of the College. But when 
its condition in this respect was changed, and its prospects began to 
brighten, I felt that the time had come when I might be permitted 
to retire, not only without injury, but with advantage to the Col- 
lege, inasmuch as it would allow the Trustees to place it in the 
hands of a man who would reside in the vicinity of the College, 
and whose time, instead of being divided between two institutions, 
might be devoted exclusively to the interests of the College. Ac- 
cordingly, with these views, I made known my wishes to you just 
as you were about to embark for Europe ; and, at the annual meet- 
ing of the Board in August, I requested permission to resign my 
office in the College as soon as my place could be supplied. In 
compliance with my wishes thus expressed to the Board of Trustees, 
a resolution has been passed requesting the Bishop to nominate a 
president. Nothing, therefore, remains for me now but to offer a 



MEMORIAL. 33 

formal resignation of my office as President of the College, to take 
effect whenever my successor can enter upon the duties of the 
office. 

" I am happy that I can leave my position in the College while 
its prospects, instead of growing darker, are becoming more and 
more promising, and furnish good reason for the hope that the future 
President of Kenyon College will make it, with the blessing of God, 
what it was designed to be, and what the wants of our Church in 
the great West demand that it should be. 

" With many thanks to the Trustees for the confidence they have 
reposed in me, and my earnest prayers for the prosperity of this 
important institution, I remain, Rt. Rev. and dear Sir, with great 
respect and affection, 

" Yours truly, 

"Thomas M. Smith. 

" Rt. Rev. Bishop Mcllvaine." 

On accepting the resignation, the Board of Trustees 
of the Theological Seminary and Kenyon College 
passed the following resolution : — 

" Resolved, That the Board of Trustees tender to Dr. Smith their 
thanks for the sacrifices he has made in discharging the duties of the 
presidency of Kenyon College, and now, at his earnest desire and 
request, accept his resignation of said office, to take effect so soon 
as his successor can enter upon his duties." 

It is no disparagement to the lamented Andrews, 
or the accomplished scholar who now so admirably 
sustains the duties of this honorable post, to say that 
Kenyon will never have a more devoted, a more able, 
and a more successful head than he who thus laid 
down her presidency. 

Gratefully did Dr. Smith welcome the change that 
promised to relieve him of other than his Seminary 
duties ; but even this relief was of brief duration. 

5 



34 MEMORIAL. 

The masterly character of his instructions in his fa- 
vorite work, Bishop Butler's "Analogy," was so well 
known that the successive classes were clamorous for 
his services, and up to the close of his professional 
career in this text-book, and in the chair of Mental 
Philosophy, he was constantly employed. Rigidly 
exact in his analyses, wonderfully perspicuous in his 
explanations, with a grasp of mind fully comprehend- 
ing the difficulties of his author, and gifted with that 
magnetic power, given to but very few, of inspiring 
interest on the part of others in the studies and 
trains of thought so clear to himself, — those were 
favored who passed under his instructions in these 
departments of investigation, and the remembrance 
of them will not easily fade away. 

Years now passed swiftly, as years had passed be- 
fore, in the patient toil of a Professor's life. There 
were old foes of doubt or error to combat, and new 
phases of thought to investigate and explain. There 
were the vexed questions of the older theology to 
discuss, and the later forms of antagonism to the truth 
to repel. Above all' these were the weightier mat- 
ters of personal faith and love to keep alive, by pre- 
cept and example, in the hearts of those looking 
forward to Christ's ministry of reconciliation, and the 
dangers of a perfunctory exercise of the sacred call- 
ing to be pointed out. It was a work of deep and 
solemn responsibility that had fallen to Dr. Smith, 
and how he performed it the following extracts from 
letters from some of his students, written after his 
death, will help to indicate : — 



MEMORIAL. 35 

FROM THE REV. MR. BENSON TO THE REV. MR. PERRY. 

" Gambier, Aug. 21st, 1865. 

" Dear Brother : — " When I came to Gambier, in the fall of 
1849, as student in the College, Dr. Smith had been in his position 
of Professor of Systematic Divinity in the Theological Seminary for 
about one year. Soon after my settlement in the College, I was 
invited by one of the theological students to go with him and call 
on Professor Smith. I did so, and I do not know that I ever en- 
joyed a first call on any one so much in my life. His manner was 
so cordial and winning that I felt at home immediately, and this 
I believe to be the experience of every one, especially of every 
student, of any of the institutions on the Hill, who went to his 
house. 

" My opinion of him then was, and I am yet of the same mind, 
that he was one of the most polished men in his manner and the 
most charming in conversation with whom it has ever been my pleas- 
ure to meet ; and I am the more particular on this point, because, 
though in after years the Doctor never lost any of his kindness of 
heart, he did in later years, as his infirmities came upon him, lose 
much of that grace of manner and fluency of conversation for 
which he was, I think, at the time of which I am speaking, very re- 
markable ; and hence I have frequently remarked that those who 
knew him only in the later years of his life, really knew very little 
of him as he was in his prime. 

" At this time (1849-50) the College pulpit w T as filled by the dif- 
ferent clerical professors on the Hill, and it ever was a great pleas- 
ure to me when I saw that Professor Smith was to be the preacher ; 
for though not what the world frequently calls eloquent, there was 
in his sermons so much of the Gospel, such clearness of thought, 
and such force of expression as to make him a marked, a most ac- 
ceptable, and most profitable preacher. Yet, though excellent in his 
regular discourses, his pulpit power lay, I think, in off-hand exeget- 
ical lectures, where his thorough knowledge of the Bible and his 
insight into the human heart were fully and very effectively dis- 
played. In discourses of this kind he excelled any man whom I 
have ever heard. 

"In 1850 the Rev. Dr. Bronson resigned the presidency of Ken- 
yon College, and Professor Smith was elected (retaining, however^ 



36 MEMORIAL. 

his theological professorship) to fill the vacant presidential chair, 
which post he held for about four years, very much to the satisfac- 
tion of all concerned. His dignified though gentle bearing, and his 
cordial manner making him popular with the students, and his very 
able instruction in the branches belonging to his chair making him 
a very acceptable teacher to the higher classes in the College. 

" But to my mind, the great profit of the Doctor's life was as 
Milnor Professor of Systematic Divinity, which department he taught 
with rare ability and skill. His mind was clear and discriminating, 
his judgment strong and sound, hence his own views of truth were 
sharply defined and very distinct ; his views were always put forth 
in a decided and vigorous manner, and thus made a deep impression 
on the mind of the student." 



FROM THE REV. MR. RISSER TO MRS. SMITH. 

" October 8th, 1864. 

"My dear Mrs. Smith : — "You will, I am sure, not consider 
it an intrusion when I venture to write to you after having almost, 
as I fear, become a stranger. 

" In my last ' Episcopalian ' I read with deep and heartfelt sym- 
pathy the account of Dr. Smith's decease ; and as one of his favored 
students in theology, I cannot forbear expressing to you my appre- 
ciation of the loss which you and yours have sustained. I imagine 
that very few, if any, students of the Seminary enjoyed so much con- 
fidence, and received so many kindnesses from the beloved Professor 
and yourself as I did ; and hence there are perhaps few who remem- 
ber him with the affection and gratitude that I do, and who now 
think of your bereavement with a more lively sympathy. How many 
reminiscences, how many sayings and doings of him w 7 ho is now at 
rest, come to my mind as I think of his patient and earnest labors 
in the Seminary. His patience and forbearing kindness seemed 
indeed inexhaustible. He would listen to our arguments and ob- 
jections with the most perfect respect, however fallacious they might 
be, and always answer them kindly and patiently, even encouraging 
us to bring forward all our difficulties, with the assurance that he 
would remove them if possible. I remember with peculiar satisfac- 
tion his great candor and fairness in the statement of his views, and 



MEMORIAL. 37 

his readiness to state his inability to comprehend or explain what 
he considered beyond human comprehension. How often would he 
say, " This is one of those mysteries which I have not yet been able 
to fathom ; " or, " This is one of the many difficulties which I cannot 
explain. I have a great many such laid away in store. They accumu- 
late as I grow older ; but there is a time coming for which I reserve 
them, when they will be explained and when I shall be better able 
to comprehend them." I think of him now as receiving the fulness 
of that truth and knowledge which he so much loved, and as rejoic- 
ing in the presence of Him whose communion he so much enjoyed. 
"What more could there be, in the departure of such an one, to 
comfort, even those who of necessity will most deeply feel the 
bereavement ! The separation is a very short one. ' A little 
while,' and the veil that is before our eyes will be removed, and 
then we may hope to see and enjoy in its fulness the bliss of those 
we love." 

At length the life-work was over, and the decision 
made to rest from labor till the summons came to de- 
part and be with Christ. A year before, the youngest 
daughter had been married and taken, as had been 
her sister, to her parents' first home in Portland, 
Maine ; and conscious of the growing infirmities of 
years, the children with one voice urged the resigna- 
tion of their father and his removal eastward, where 
he could spend his declining years with them. 

The public announcement of this purpose was re- 
ceived with evident tokens of regret and regard. So 
thoroughly had Dr. Smith become identified with 
Gambier that few could realize the possibility of a 
separation that was now inevitable. If wishes and 
urgent words could have changed this determination 
they would not have been wanting, but the reason- 
ableness of the request could not but commend it to 
all. From among the many notes of affectionate 



38 MEMOKIAL. 

sympathy at this severance of ties and associations 
so dear to Dr. Smith's heart we append the following. 
That from Dr. Tyng is eminently characteristic of 
the writer, a lifelong friend of Dr. Smith's. That from 
the Assistant Bishop of Ohio is no less worthy of 
attention, giving, as it does, the fullest testimony to 
the finished work of him of whom it speaks : — 

DR. TYNG'S LETTER. 

" New York, September 5, 1863. 

" My dear Friend and Brother : — I have your note of the 
2d. No act of my life has given me more satisfaction than my 
nomination of you to the Professorship which you have so usefully 
filled. I most sincerely regret that age comes over you, requiring a 
cessation of active labor. My conscience thoroughly approves of 
our retirement from pressing duty, when we have finished our day, 
and we seem to be no longer able to go in and out, with the advan- 
tage and usefulness which once attended us. My own mind is much 
directed to that coming time for myself, — when the enormous re- 
sponsibilities and duties of my position may be laid aside for abler 
hands and for a narrower sphere. I have nothing to object to your 
whole plan, as you have laid it out. I shall be most grateful to our 
Divine Master if He shall enable me to make another selection so 
eminently appropriate and perfectly satisfying. Of course I can 
only contemplate, until you have adopted your final purpose. How 
soon and how happily we may both see the face of the Lord Jesus ! 
Few of our brethren live to work so long. Still fewer to work so 
happily and pleasantly as He has permitted us to do. But I feel 
that the work of life is done, and I am now gathering up the 
fragments which remain, that nothing may be lost. To promote the 
happiness of your remaining years in any way within my reach, 
will be a pleasure to me. May the peace which passeth understand- 
ing abide with you always. 

" With great regard, 

" Your faithful friend, 

" Stephen H. Tyng. 

« Rev. T. M. Smith, D. D." 



MEMORIAL. 39 



BISHOP BEDELL'S LETTER. 

"Cleveland, Nov. 28th, 1863. 

"Mr dear Friend and Brother:- — Yours of the 21st has 
reached me here. I am hardly willing to realize that you have 
indeed left Gambier ; and that your wonted chair in the Library, 
and your accustomed seat in the Chapel, are vacant. So many 
pleasant days we have spent together, and so often talked and 
prayed together in behalf of the dear hill ! I always found you so 
readily cooperative, so kind and judicious in advice, and so apt in 
encouraging my plans, that I shall miss you sorely. But God has 
greatly blessed both you and us in your long connection with Gam- 
bier. Eighteen years is a long tour of duty in one institution. 
And you have been privileged to see the College grow to strength, 
and the Seminary rise to eminence, under your ministration. You 
have stamped your views and influence upon many an able advocate 
of the Gospel. It is a peculiar privilege to form theological opinions 
in such wise that they will maintain their shape. And I think, so 
far as my observation extends, you have this peculiar happiness 
in the retrospect — that your scholars still follow your leadership, 
and delight to look back upon the firm, consistent, uncompromising 
views of the doctrines of grace which you inculcated. Do not 
imagine that the Lord has laid you aside from work. He has 
changed the work, as the burden became too heavy in the declining 
day. And now the evening may be well spent and most profitably, 
in reviewing the labors of eighteen years, and with your rich ex- 
perience preparing them for a widespread influence on the Church's 
mind through the press. 

" I will not say farewell either for Mrs. Bedell or myself, for we 
shall hope to meet you often in a spot very dear to us. But we do 
wish you the repose you need in the midst of your son's most genial 
household, with the blessing of God, in a consciousness of work 
faithfully done to the glory of a Saviour. May you see constantly 
the fruits of it, in the fidelity of your scholars to the great truths of 
the Gospel, and reap at last the gracious approval of our dear Lord. 
I cannot expect you to see your labors in the light in which we 
view them. If your own mind dwells upon their conscious imper- 
fection, at least let me have the comfort of believing that mine is 
the truest view. 



40 MEMORIAL. 

" Mrs. Bedell unites with me in kindest love to Mrs. Smith and 
yourself. Remember us warmly to all at the Parsonage, and be- 
lieve me, my dear friend, 

" Ever affectionately and gratefully yours, 

" G. T. Bedell. 
"Rev. Dr. Smith." 

The Trustees, in their "grateful remembrance of 
the services of Dr. Smith," directed the continuance 
of his honored name on the catalogue as Emeritus 
Professor ; and the " Western Episcopalian," a pa- 
per for a time partially under his own charge, and 
throughout his Western life the vehicle of constant 
communications from his pen for the edification of 
the Church, thus bore tribute to his acknowledged 
merit : — 

"The friends of Gambier cannot part with Dr. Smith without 
recording their sense of the peculiar clearness, exactness, and fidel- 
ity by which his instructions in the Divinity School were marked. 
Few men have been more gifted with the power of simple and per- 
spicuous exposition of doctrine ; few with a clearer knowledge of 
the truth. Nor were Dr. Smith's services limited to his chair. For 
a long period he was rector of Harcourt Parish; and for four years 
discharged in addition the difficult offices of President of the Col- 
lege and Instructor in the higher English studies of that department. 
To such a man, now retiring worn out with years and labor, a more 
than ordinary tribute of respect is due. We can only pray that to 
his successor will come, not equal responsibilities, for these are now 
wisely divided, but equal strength." 

An earnest desire had been expressed by Bishops 
Mcllvaine and Bedell that the departure of Dr. 
Smith might be delayed, as the latter wrote, "for the 
Matriculation, and for such a farewell as is due to one 
w T ho has served Christ in our institution so faithfully." 
But it was not the desire of Dr. Smith to accept any 



MEMORIAL. 41 

public acknowledgment of his labors, and conse- 
quently the coming "Matriculation" found his succes- 
sor duly occupying his chair. Bishop Mcllvaine on 
this occasion thus alluded to the resignation and 
absence of Dr. Smith : — 

" Referring, in the opening of his address, to such occasions of 
Christian sympathy and union in prayer and praise, as supplying 
some of the best of his pleasures, he added, that he felt as though 
he could spend no time upon the more formal and external ques- 
tions which the occasion might naturally suggest, but must pass at 
once to those deeper ones which directly touch the inner life of the 
soul. 

" Before doing so, however, he was reminded that one who was 
wont to meet with them at such times was no longer present. Rev. 
Dr. Smith, who had so long held in connection with the institution 
the chair of Dogmatic Theology, had been forced, by the gathering 
pressure of years and infirmities, to retire from his important duties 
and would be no more seen here at least. Through many of the 
darkest days of the institution, during its long and severe financial 
distress, and in the discharge of oftentimes accumulated and very 
laborious duties, he had displayed a remarkable patience and faith- 
fulness ; but if he were required to indicate any gift in which he 
peculiarly excelled, and which rendered his teaching in that impor- 
tant post of peculiar value, it would be the gift of discrimination, 
the clear and decided judgment which could readily and safely divide 
the word of truth according to the relation and analogy of its several 
truths, and which could also separate between the genuine Truth, 
and all that pretended to be. 

" This was the faculty, perhaps, most to be prized in a position 
such as his. Other things being equal, such as adequate acquaint- 
ance with his subject, ability to impart it to others, &c, discrimina- 
tion was the most precious and indispensable quality, and in this 
Dr. Smith excelled." 

Later, the "Western Episcopalian" again refers to 
Dr. Smith in a brief article on "Time's Eeplace- 
ments " : — 

6 



42 MEMORIAL. 

" The arrival and entrance upon his duties of the Rev. Henry 
Tullidge, who replaces Rev. Dr. Smith in the Milnor Professor- 
ship of Systematic Divinity, brings forcibly to mind the relentless 
swing of Time, and makes us realize more distinctly how faithful, 
patient, and valuable a laborer and instructor has been just removed 
from the ways and walks of Gambier. 

" Dr. Smith has, for more than eighteen years, discharged the 
duties of his chair, as well as, temporarily, the accumulated duties 
of other chairs, and even of the presidency of the College, with a 
laborious and unwearied faithfulness which few public teachers in 
this age and place of changes can hope to emulate. Connected, as 
he was, with the institutions here during some of their darkest days 
of toil and struggle, he has stuck to .his post with a steady disregard 
of personal considerations, which one must needs himself have par- 
ticipated in justly to eulogize. He has only now at length quitted 
it, after so protracted a tenure, under the premonitory pressure of 
advancing years, and retires to the gentler and quieter scenes which 
befit the declining stage of life, with that surest and best sweetener 
of age, ' a conscience void of offence both toward God and toward 
man.' 

" For Mr. Tullidge, already so favorably known in the Church, 
whether as a pastor or as an author, and who now succeeds to these 
vastly important labors, to their joy no less than to their respon- 
sibility, we could frame no better aspiration than that he may be 
spared to as full and as faithful a service as that just completed by 
Dr. Smith." 

Thus, full of years and full of honors, was the work 
of Dr. Smith at Gambier closed. 

The weariness of many years of toilsome exertion, 
far beyond his strength, followed Dr. Smith into re- 
tirement, and it was soon evident to those who had 
welcomed him as they had hoped to a long term of 
rest and family intercourse, that with the close of the 
life-work would soon come the close of life itself. There 
was no struggle for added years, no wish to prolong 
an existence, the days of which had passed in the 









MEMORIAL. 43 

great exercise of duty; but instead, the calm, patient 
submission to the will of God, and the waiting of the 
weary servant for the Master's call to rest and reward. 
A few months spent with his son at the Ascension 
Rectory in New York, a brief visit to Newton, Mass., 
where the parents of his youngest son-in-law resided, 
and the usual journey to Portland, still his eldest 
daughter's home, made up the measure of his days. 
The failure in strength was gradual at the first, — al- 
most imperceptible for some months, — then rapid ; 
and soon after reaching Portland a medical consulta- 
tion confirmed the conviction of his own mind that 
death was near at hand. The particulars of that 
death, so calm, so sweet, so wonderfully consoling, 
appear in the correspondence below ; but words are 
inadequate to depict the patience, the quiet faith, the 
full, clear, abiding trust, the willing, waiting submis- 
siveness, and the full, rich fervor of devotion, attend- 
ing that committal of the soul unto Him who would 
keep it against the last day. The chamber where he 
passed away became a vestibule of heaven. The sight 
of the pale, dying sufferer was a sermon. The words 
he uttered, and the attitude of expectancy he dis- 
played, were such as gave confirmation strong as Holy 
Writ to the truths he had taught and believed. He 
died, September 6th, 1864, at a little after four o'clock 
in the afternoon of a beautiful day of early autumn, 
with those he loved around him, and under circum- 
stances of interest best described in words written 
when the scene was still fresh in mind. These words 
appear in connection with the letter of Bishop Bedell, 
announcing the decease of Dr. Smith to his friends 
and students at the West. 



44 MEMORIAL. 

"■ New York, Sept. 23, 1864. 
" Rev. and dear Brother : — Tidings have just reached me of 
the death of the Rev. Thomas M. Smith, D. D., Emeritus Professor 
of Theology in Bexley Hall. It occurred on Tuesday afternoon, 
September 6th, in Portland, Maine, at the residence of his son-in- 
law, N. P. Richardson, Esq. Many in the Diocese, especially those 
who are so deeply indebted to Dr. Smith's faithful instructions in 
the Seminary, will take a lively interest in reading the following 
account of his last moments, given in a portion of a letter from the 
Rev. Mr. Perry : — 

' Portland, Maine, Sept. 9th, 1864. 

' Right Rev. and dear Sir : — It becomes my painful duty to 
announce to you the decease of our dear father, Dr. Smith. He 
passed to his reward at four o'clock Tuesday afternoon, after a brief 
illness, borne with singular patience and resignation to the will of 
God. During the closing week of his earthly life, as in fact through 
all his days of health and strength, he gave us frequent assurances 
of his perfect peace, his firm and unshaken trust in Christ, and as 
the hour of departure drew nigh, it was our privilege to hear his 
unfaltering testimony to the comfort he felt, and the confidence that 
was his, in the doctrines he had so firmly held and so forcibly taught. 
He knew whom he had believed, and never for a moment did a 
shade of doubt disturb the calm serenity of his perfect trust. 

' His dying bed was surrounded by those he loved in life. His 
son, who had been led to shorten his absence abroad by a month, on 
account of his anxiety on his father's behalf, was alone absent, the 
steamer which brought him back having reached New York at the 
very hour of his father's departure. At the very last there was a 
peculiar glory. His eyes, long closed, opened wide with a gaze of 
solemn satisfaction and peace that pierced the veil, we cannot doubt, 
and saw Jesus sitting at the right hand of God ; and in this sight the 
wan features seemed to change before our eyes, and in the glory of 
immortal splendor, on the countenance we knew and loved so well, 
we caught a glimpse of the glory that shall yet be revealed. I 
have seen many last hours, and witnessed many peaceful departures 
hence, but nothing so triumphant, so comforting, so full of heavenly 
splendor, have I ever looked upon ; and when this full-orbed gaze 






MEMORIAL. 45 

into the future world ended, and the eyes turned to look at our dear 
mother with a glance of tenderness and love words cannot describe, 
and then closed instantly in death, we fell upon our knees in grate- 
ful praise to God, who had given his servant so abundant an entrance 
into his everlasting kingdom. 

' My brother, the Rev. Dr. John Cotton Smith, was with us at the 
last sad offices of respect and affection. The funeral was from St. 
Luke's Church, and was conducted by the Bishop of Maine, who 
bore most appropriate and eloquent testimony to the heavenly walk 
and conversation of the deceased. Four of the clergy bore him to 
his burial, and we have left us, of him we loved and revered, only 
his holy example and his well-remembered counsels. 
* Very truly and affectionately yours, 

'William Stevens Perry. 

< Bishop Bedell, Gambier, 0.' 

" Thus has passed away an eminent servant of Christ, to whom 
the institutions at Gambier, and the Diocese of Ohio, are under last- 
ing obligations. For eighteen years he labored assiduously in the 
discharge of duties as Professor in the Theological Seminary. Dur- 
ing part of that time he acted as President of Kenyon College ; and 
frequently, for brief periods, as Professor in the chair of Moral 
Philosophy. He relinquished his tasks only when his strength had 
given way, and within less than a year of his death. 

" His views of doctrinal truth were clear, discriminating, and 
decidedly evangelical, alsvays put forth with force, leaving no mis- 
understandings. These teachings are well impressed upon the 
Diocese ; for the young clergy who graduated from Bexley Hall, 
carried with them no less warm attachment to their teacher, than 
thorough appreciation of the truth he taught so ably. 

" Ever cheerful in his faith and happy in his Christian experiences, 
it was to be expected that his last hours would be characterized (as 
we have seen) by tranquil hope, bordering indeed upon triumph, as 
with the eye of a saint ripe for glory, he had a foretaste of his in- 
heritance. 

" Only one shadow was cast on the peaceful scene, — the absence 
of his son, whose return from Europe, although hastened, was too 
late. His devoted wife ministered, as she had done for forty years, 



46 MEMORIAL. 

with loving care beside him ; and her form filled the last earthly- 
vision which his eye rested on. And so in the bosom of his family, 
having full experience of the Saviour's sustaining presence, making 
full proof of the breadth and strength and fidelity of the promises, 
he fell asleep. 

" Thus has passed into the heavenly church another of Christ's 
worthies, in the ripeness of his Christian character, in the complete- 
ness of his usefulness, in the fulness of his days, honored, beloved, 
and lamented. JLet those who have sat at his feet, hold fast to his 
testimony to the doctrines of grace. Let their preaching ever be, as 
his teaching was, ' Christ Crucified,' the centre and sum of the 
Gospel ; on the one hand, the key to the intricacies of theology, and 
on the other, the simple story which is to reach a sinner's heart. 
When thus ' to live is Christ,' certainly * to die is gain.' 

" G. T. B." 

A little later, the old and tried friend, the beloved 
and senior Bishop, who well knew the work of him 
of whom he spoke, thus told the assembled Conven- 
tion of the Diocese their great loss : — 

" But it is not to other dioceses alone that we must look to see 
who have gone up higher. I told you, in my address at the last 
Convention, that the Rev. Thomas Mather Smith, D. D., for many 
years the learned and successful Professor of Systematic Divinity 
in our Diocesan Theological Seminary, had, under the weight of 
years, resigned that chair. He went to spend the rest of his days 
among his children in the Eastern States, retaining his connection 
with this Diocese. But his pilgrimage was almost ended. Some 
eight months ago, in great happiness of mind and joy of peace, he 
died in Him for whom he had lived, and of whose person and work 
and grace and salvation and glory, it had been his delight to speak to 
the candidates for the ministry, that they might know how to teach 
others that essential learning. Many there be in the ministry who 
remember with thankfulness the distinctness and discrimination with 
which he mapped out to them those great truths of our Church which 
they should make the beginning and ending of their ministry, while 
the diverging lines and insidious shades of error were with equal 



MEMORIAL. 47 

faithfulness exposed. That Professorship is now vacant again. 
May the Lord and Head of the Church be pleased to show whom 
He has chosen for it." 

And the fellow Professors who had so long looked 
up to him as their official head, and had learned so 
well to love, as well as revere him as a Christian 
scholar and gentleman, placed on record the following 
minute of their sense of the bereavement, a minute 
in which they sought to bear testimony, as well they 
could, to the virtues and graces of him whom they 
mourned : — 

" The Faculty of the Seminary have heard with sincere sorrow 
of the decease of their late beloved associate and fellow-laborer, the 
Rev. Thomas M. Smith, D. D., and desire to place on record their 
deep sense of the loss which the Church has thereby sustained. 
Dr. Smith was for eighteen years the Milnor Professor of Syste- 
matic Theology in this Institution. For the duties of that station, 
he was eminently qualified by his high attainments as a scholar and 
a divine, and his services were most valuable. Indefatigable in his 
labors, he was peculiarly ' apt to teach,' and most successful in im- 
parting the clear and discriminating views of divine truth, which he 
himself possessed. His life was holy and exemplary, and his whole 
deportment such as faithfully to illustrate the truth and power of the 
doctrines which he taught." 

To these attestations of worth, and full, hearty pro- 
fession of love, we would add, ere we pass to another 
division of our theme, the words of his "beloved 
physician," Professor Dana, of Bowdoin College, to 
whose attentions Dr. Smith was much indebted, and 
whose testimony to the wonderful peace and happi- 
ness of those closing hours of earth, is strong and 
fall : - 

" There was about Dr, Smith a cheerful serenity, which never 



48 MEMORIAL. 

failed. Even the first suggestion, that the sickness might probably 
prove fatal, taking him, as it did in some measure, by surprise, did not 
disturb it for a moment. And as each successive phase of the disease 
manifested itself, so trying and so painful, his spirit seemed always 
to say, ' He hath done all things well.' His peace was truly ' like a 
river.' 

" Some expression of regret having been made one morning, that 
the nature of the malady was such as not to admit of more, positive 
relief, I well remember what a smile of placid satisfaction played 
upon his face, as he remarked, ' Our Saviour, when He was upon 
earth, forgave the sins, and healed the diseases of men. He is the 
same Saviour still.' I could see that his mind rested on the thought 
that his Saviour would heal the disease if he saw it to be best for 
him, and if otherwise, he did not desire it. 

" In the progress of the disease he had become reduced to a condi- 
tion of nearly complete helplessness. One morning, shortly before 
he died, he was lying with his eyes closed, having for several hours 
taken but little notice of external things, when a friend whispered in 
his ear, that he was glad for him, in his extreme weakness and in- 
ability, that he had such a hope to sustain him. I shall never for- 
get the deliberate earnestness with which he opened his eyes, and 
repeated, as if giving expression to the deep and calm experience 
of his soul, these words, ' I know whom I have believed, and am 
persuaded that He is able to keep that which I have committed unto 
Him against that day.' I think those were about his last intelligible 
words. 

" Of that final scene, when the eyes, which had for some hours 
seemed shut forever upon the things of this life, opened so wide 
again, and the soul gazed out (must we not believe ?) in such rev- 
erent wonder and delight upon the opening scenes of Paradise, it is 
for others who also witnessed it to speak. 

" No sceptic, surely, could have stood by this death-bed without 
admitting that in this instance the hope of the gospel had proved 
indeed ' an anchor of the soul both sure and steadfast.' No believer 
could have been there without feeling that he had occasion to thank 
God for the privilege. 

" What an unspeakable privilege must it be counted by wife and 
children of this servant of God, to have been permitted to accompany 



MEMORIAL. 49 

him near enough to the opening gates of the celestial city, to see 
something of its light and glory reflected in his dying face ! 
" I have the honor to be, dear Madam, 

" Very truly and respectfully yours, 

"Israel T. Dana." 

It would be difficult to delineate the character of 
Dr. Smith in more fitting words than those of his 
beloved brother-in-law, the Rev. President Woods, 
D. D., of Bowdoin College, — u A faithful minister, 
an upright and blameless Christian gentleman — an 
accomplished Christian scholar." Courteous and re- 
fined, singularly gifted in conversational powers, 
exact and ready in his knowledge, and with a 
mind of large grasp and great discrimination ; happy 
in his explanations, clear and collected in argument, 
he was admirably calculated for a Professor's chair; 
and the post he retained so long and filled with such 
universal acceptance, attests his power. 

As a preacher of God's Word he was easy and 
graceful in manner, forcible and just in illustration, 
methodical in the arrangement of his sermons, and 
ever accurate and attractive in his rhetorical treat- 
ment ; often eloquent, always interesting, faithful and 
direct in application, and exhibiting the polish and 
thought never secured save by study and labor ; he 
was, as President Woods happily expresses it, " in 
matter and manner, in his sermons and his prayers, 
one of the best models of a minister I have ever 
known." 

Few men were more genial and agreeable in social 
life. There was a charm about his walk and conver- 
sation that impressed even strangers with the purity 



50 MEMORIAL. 

and saintliness of his character. Most fittingly writes 
one who never saw him but for a few days of a sum- 
mer vacation : — 

" I never saw him save when I was with you in Portland. The 
brief intercourse I had with him there made a sunny memory I love 
to recall. His Christian gentleness and kindly bearing, his churchly 
feeling and matured experience in the good old way, were often re- 
called after I left you. As to-morrow I engage in the service for All 
Saints' Day, among the sainted memories I shall not miss his. Knit 
together as we are in the same communion and fellowship, may God 
grant us grace so to follow him in all virtuous and godly living, that 
we may come to those unspeakable joys, prepared for those who un- 
feignedly love Him." 

In his doctrinal views he never changed. The teach- 
ings of his beloved and venerable father-in-law, the 
Abbott Professor of Christian Theology at Andover, 
in Andover's palmiest days, were those he received 
most folly and loved to teach to others, as the clear 
and simple deductions from Revelation. Christ and 
Him crucified, formed the sum of his gospel. He 
knew no other name ; he sought no other mediator 
than the Only Name given under heaven whereby 
we may be saved, — the name of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, — finding in the standards of the Church of his 
mature love and adoption, the clearest enunciations 
of the simple doctrines of grace ; delighting to trace 
through the writings of the Reformers and Bishops of 
the Mother Church, the unswerving testimony of the 
Fathers of our Reformed Communion to simple Prot- 
estant truth, he rejoiced in finding in the Protestant 
Episcopal Church that which he failed to see in the 
ecclesiasticisms of his earlier days, — a fixed faith, and 
that a bulwark against Romish, tractarian, or latitu- 



MEMORIAL. 51 

dinarian error. Conservative in his views, he was 
by no means a partisan in his churchmanship, and 
though from conscientious convictions and preference 
an u Evangelical " or u Low^ Churchman," he was ever 
rubrical and consistent in his obedience to every 
Church law. His love for the Liturgy was deep and 
appreciative, and his admiration of the orderly free- 
dom in the discipline of our system, as opposed to 
the arbitrariness and license of Congregationalism, he 
took no pains to conceal. 

But it was in domestic life that the winning love- 
liness of Dr. Smith's character was most fully evi- 
denced. There have been few such husbands, few 
such fathers. The tenderness and fulness of his 
home affections were striking. He was never happy 
when away from the cherished objects of his en- 
dearment. And yet this depth of love was never 
suffered to warp his judgment or to extenuate those 
evils which bring pain to parents' hearts, and are 
so often injudicially treated by Christian heads of 
families. His house was set " ever in order." His 
was a model Christian home ; a holy happiness was 
its great charm, and religion was never more attrac- 
tive than in the exhibition he and his made of its 
reality and depth. 

But words may not picture the excellences of one 
who was singularly excellent in all respects and in a 
measure above the most of men, — holy, harmless, un- 
defiled. Hearts that loved him so fully here still have 
enshrined his blessed memory, and more than this his 
record is on high ; his name is written in the Lamb's 
Book of Life. 



52 MEMORIAL. 



LETTERS AND OBITUARY NOTICES. 



BISHOP BEDELL, TO THE REV. MR. PERRY. 

" No. 3, Bible House, New York, Sept. 22, 1864. 

" Rev. and dear Brother : — Your painfully interesting letter 
reached me by last mail. It is the first positive information we have 
had of the lamented death of our dear friend — our long-tried and 
able colleague in the Diocese of Ohio. I thank you sincerely for its 
particularity, and its faithful picture of the last hours of that eminent 
servant of the Lord. Well indeed might you praise the Saviour, 
though you knelt around the lifeless body, whilst you followed the 
happy spirit in its ' abundant entrance ' into the everlasting glory. 
Trusting that I have your permission, I will publish part of the 
letter in the ' Western Episcopalian/ as the most fitting account of 
an event which will be of deepest interest to the clergy of the 
Diocese, and to all the many who loved your father. 

" He had my highest esteem ; as a teacher of Theology my entire 
confidence; as a Christian friend my warmest sympathy and true 
affection. His name is written on the Diocese, in the religious 
teachings of the clergy whom he instructed. The Church on earth 
has lost, but the Church in heaven had added to the names of wor- 
thies who have served the Saviour with memorable fidelity, and 
now reap their reward in His glorious presence and within His gra- 
cious smile. 

" Painful as the loss will be to yourselves, and to my dear brother 
Dr. Smith and his family, the memories of his useful life and un- 
shadowed death will bring comfort. And I cannot doubt that the 
everlasting arms will be felt underneath the widowed heart, sustain- 
ino- even her amidst the throes of the severest trial of her life. 

" I must beg you to ask my brother Smith and my dear friend 
your mother, to accept this expression of both Mrs. Bedell's and my 
own deep sympathy. May the Holy Spirit, in His gracious office as 
Comforter, represent the Saviour's love to them in its true aspect, — 
stronger, as now they need to feel its strength the more, and the 
more winning, as now they hear its accents whilst themselves are 
beneath the cloud. 'A friend that sticketh closer than a brother' 



MEMORIAL. 53 

is the friend for adversities. And when that friend has shown him- 
self divine in the fulfilment of His promises, and in His power to 
take this departing saint without a shadow of fear through the 
shadow of death, surely they will find comfort and repose at His 
feet. 

" With the kindest regard and sympathy from Mrs. Bedell and 
myself, believe me, affectionately yours, 

" G. T. Bedell." 



PEOF. JVlC-ELHEXMY TO THE EEV. MR. PERRY. 

" Gambier, Aug. 15, 1865. 

" Rev. and dear Brother: — Your letter of the 19th ult., 
informing me of your purpose to prepare a sketch of the life and 
labors of my late beloved friend and colleague, the Rev. Dr. Thomas 
Mather Smith, and requesting me to communicate for your use some 
portion of my reminiscences of the period of our associated labor, 
was received when I was on the eve of leaving home for a vacation- 
ramble. The sudden return of an ailment from which I had par- 
tially recovered, incapacitating me for exertion of any kind, has 
kept me close at home ever since, and at the same time prevented 
me, until now, from complying with your request. 

" Though still hardly equal to the effort of writing, I attempt a 
few lines which, I trust, you will accept as an evidence of my desire 
to contribute something, however insignificant, towards the further- 
ance of the good work that you have in hand. I deeply regret my 
inability to do more. 

"My acquaintance with your venerated father commenced early 
in the winter of 1856, when I became his associate in the Faculty 
of the Theological Seminary of this Diocese. At our first interview, 
I was particularly impressed with the mildness and benignity of his 
temper. This first impression was never subsequently impaired. 
Prolonged intimacy only served to deepen it. I am free to say that 
I have never been brought into contact with any one of whose 
native gentleness of spirit I was more fully persuaded ; whose 
whole bearing, indeed, more unmistakably proclaimed the Christian 
gentleman. In this particular, he seemed to me to belong to what 
is known as the Old School. 



54 MEMORIAL. 

" His equanimity always impressed me as something remarkable, 
— perfectly preserved as I have known it to be, in repeated in- 
stances, under very trying circumstances. I never knew him to be off 
his guard. His manner uniformly gave evidence of the most perfect 
self-possession. His forbearance and command of temper were un- 
surpassed. He was singularly free from any thing approaching to 
censoriousness. He never dwelt upon the faults or miscarriages of 
others. On the contrary, it was his habit to suggest some plea in 
extenuation of the misconduct of those about him, when brought to 
his notice, if not wholly unpardonable ; and much that 1 was wont 
to condemn as such, he was ever apt to find some palliation for. In- 
deed, such was his reluctance to believe evil, that he experienced the 
exercise of any sort of discipline, when called to it in the discharge 
of his official duty, to be one of his severest trials. I do not recollect 
having ever heard him utter a severe judgment, or use a harsh ex- 
pression, in reference to the gravest offenders, even among those 
who had justly incurred his personal displeasure. In a word, his 
Christian character may be described as eminently marked by what 
the Apostle styles ' the meekness of wisdom.' 

" Of his high attainments as a theologian and his superior qualifi- 
cations as a theological lecturer, you will not expect me to write, 
gratefully attested as these are, and will long be, by so many of our 
brethren of the clergy in all parts of the Union, once his pupils in 
the Seminary. 

" Again expressing my regret that my small measure of strength 
will not permit me to write more, 

" I remain very faithfully, 

" Your Brother in Christ, 

"J. J. McElhenny." 



FROM THE REV. DR. WHARTON TO THE REV. MR. PERRY. 

" My first acquaintance with Dr. Smith was in the summer of 
1856, when I visited Gambier prior to my entrance upon the duties 
of the Professorship of English Literature, to which I was about 
that time called. My line of duties were mainly in the College, 
while those of Dr. Smith were in the Seminary ; but there were 
points of sympathy which threw me much in his society. During 
the greater part of my residence at Gambier there was no settled 



MEMORIAL. 55 

pastor of the College, and Dr. Smith was in a large measure looked 
to to fill the pulpit, and to take charge of those more social religious 
meetings which had so marked an influence on the college life. 
And in addition to this, though I was never privileged to attend the 
Seminary lectures, more than one of the inmates of my family were 
Seminary students, and through them I felt myself almost incorpo- 
rated in the Seminary. One of these, the late Rev. John W. Griffin, 
of sainted memory, attended Dr. Smith's entire course ; and through 
Mr. Griffin — than whom I have never known one of clearer mind, 
more holy piety, and more conscientious devotion to study — I feel 
as if no small portion of Dr. Smith's course of instruction had 
passed to myself, and that I could speak as if I had personally 
taken part in his classes. 

" Perhaps in this way I may be entitled to speak of some of Dr. 
Smith's characteristics ; not, perhaps, at the period of his greatest 
physical vigor, but certainly before that decline of physical power by 
which his last two years were marked. And, contrasting him with 
others whom I have known in the office of teacher, I should say 
that while fully equal to the duties of his chair in learning, there 
were one or two important points in which he was almost unrivalled. 
One of these was clearness. I have rarely met with any one more 
blessed with the gift of transparent statement. Another — and this, 
I think, those who did not meet him familiarly would scarcely have 
supposed — was a sort of quaint humor, which gave sometimes an in- 
describable grace to what might otherwise have been considered the 
monotony of theological recitation. But his great and remarkable fac- 
ulty was the fairness with which the w r hole gospel plan w T as presented. 
The danger, on the one side, of a one-sided view of a particular 
branch of truth, — that, on the other side, of a more loose conglom- 
eration of all branches of truth, — he avoided with wonderful skill 
and fidelity. He systematized, it is true, but not so as to destroy 
the individuality of either of those great elements of gospel doc- 
trine which in the work of systematization are so often unduly 
exaggerated, or unduly depressed. So each of these elements of 
doctrine was presented by him in its fulness, yet at the same time 
so that it appeared not as if it were a gospel by itself, but, as it 
really was, a part of the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. For the 
rare wisdom with which he thus rightly divided the Word, I am glad 



56 MEMORIAL. 

to have this opportunity of expressing not merely my own obliga- 
tions, but I am confident those of all who attended his course. 

" To Dr. Smith's family it seems a work of supererogation for 
me to speak of that evenness of temper and gentleness of heart 
which shone forth wherever he moved, but shed in its fullest degree 
their mild lustre under his own roof. Others, also, have commem- 
orated and will commemorate the uncomplaining devotion with 
which he discharged duties — sometimes most incongruous as well 
as anxious — which were thrown on him at different periods of his 
term of service at Gambier. For myself, I can well say that I can 
recall few cases in which the gospel has been at once so blame- 
lessly lived and so completely taught." 



BISHOP STEVENS TO THE REV. MR. PERRY. 

"Newton, Mass., September 12, 1864. 

"To the Rev. Mr. Perry: — I did not know, until Mr. Doty 
returned on Saturday, that you proposed remaining in Portland, or 
I should have written to you before, to tell you and Sarah how 
deeply Ali and myself sympathize with you in your great bereave- 
ment. Jt must have been a precious privilege to have ministered 
to the last wants of the departed saint, and to have soothed the last 
hours of his earthly pilgrimage. 

" You were more than repaid, however, by catching from his coun- 
tenance a gleam of the reflected light of heaven, as it lit up his face 
with unearthly radiance. You must have felt as if you stood very 
near the gate of pearl, and could almost see the shining ones as 
they came out to conduct the patient sufferer to the Paradise of 
God. There he now is, there he will be in full spiritual conscious- 
ness and joy, until clothed upon by his resurrection body, he shall 
be caught up to dwell forever with the Lord in the perfect bliss of 
heaven. 

" When such a godly and lovely man dies, our thoughts should not 
linger at his grave as if he were there ; that which made him godly 
and lovely is not there, but with Jesus, and thither should our 
thoughts ascend, and seek to imagine his joy as freed from sin, from 
sickness, from sorrow. He is conscious of his full salvation, and 
tastes the first fruits of his blissful eternity. I trust that Mrs. Smith 



MEMORIAL. 57 

is enabled to realize in some degree the blessedness which her hus- 
band now experiences, and to find in his gain comfort for her loss. 
Her Maker is now her husband, and beneath her are the everlasting 
arms. 

" Please give our affectionate sympathy to Mrs. Smith and to 
Sarah, who must feel this loss so deeply, and assure them that our 
heart's desire is, that they may be comforted by the indwelling 
of the Holy Ghost, and by the abiding presence of the adorable 
Redeemer. 

" Very truly, 

" Your affectionate uncle, 

" William Bacon Stevens." 



OBITUARY. 

FROM THE CHURCH JOURNAL. 

" The decease of the Rev. Thomas Mather Smith, D. D., formerly 
President of Kenyon College, and at the time of his death Emeritus 
Professor of Systematic Divinity in the Theological Seminary of 
the Diocese of Ohio, demands more than a passing notice. A life 
like his devoted to the sacred ministry and to the work of instruct- 
ing those who were themselves to minister to others, uneventful 
though it may seem to such as care only for stirring incidents or 
marked and epochal scenes, still presents to the Christian mind 
much of interest, while its fullest record is on high. 

"Born in Stamford, Connecticut, in the year 1797, — the son of 
the Rev. Daniel Smith, A. M., for fifty years Pastor of the Con- 
gregationalist Parish in that town, — and uniting in his veins the 
blood of many renowned names of Puritan fame, the subject of this 
notice entered Yale College in 1812, and was graduated with honor 
in 1816. The following year he spent in study with his uncle, the 
Hon. John Cotton Smith, LL. D., Governor of Connecticut, entering 
the Theological Seminary at Andover in 1818. He was ordained 
to the Congregationalist ministry in Portland, in 1822, having been 
called to the charge of the Third Parish in that city. The same 
year he married Mary Greenleaf, the eldest daughter of the Rev. 
Leonard Woods, D. D., Abbott Professor in the Seminary at 
Andover. Mr. Smith's health having failed in Portland, he was 



58 MEMORIAL. 

successively called to the charge of parishes in Fall River, Mass., 
Catskill, N. Y., and New Bedford, Mass. During this period, his 
views of the ministry underwent a change, resulting in his applica- 
tion for Holy Orders in the Episcopal Church. He was ordained 
to the Diaconate at New Bedford, by the Rt. Rev. Benjamin Bos- 
worth Smith, D. D., Bishop of Kentucky, acting for the Bishop of 
Massachusetts, who, a year later, admitted him to the Order of 
Priests. Soon after he was appointed to the Milnor Professorship 
of Systematic Divinity in the Theological Seminary at Gambier, 
Ohio. He received his D. D. from Bowdoin College in 1850. For 
four years he combined with the duties of his Professorship the 
Presidency of Kenyon College, giving to those committed to his care 
in both departments, the benefit of wise and prudent counsels and 
ripe and accurate scholarship. After eighteen years of unremitted 
toil at Gambier, he resigned his Professorship in 1863, receiving 
from the Trustees the appointment of " Emeritus " Professor — a 
testimonial most fitting and deserved. Returning to the East in the 
hope of regaining his shattered health, he was attacked with the 
disease that finally proved fatal to him, No pain attended his last 
hours. No doubts disturbed the calm serenity of his sure and 
certain trust. At the close of life, a peculiar glory was vouchsafed 
to him. His inward satisfaction and joy were imaged forth in a 
full-orbed gaze that seemed to pierce the veil and see Jesus sitting 
at the right hand of God, and then with a look of love and ten- 
derness turned towards the members of his family surrounding his 
dying bed, he closed his own eyes and passed without a sigh to 
Paradise. 

" His funeral was attended at St. Luke's Church, Portland, Me., 
on Thursday, September 8, two days after his decease. Four of the 
clergy, the Revs. Alexander Burgess, Asa Dalton, E. F. Baker, and 
Wm. D'Orville Doty, bore him to his burial. The Bishop of Maine 
conducted the services, bearing full and fitting testimony to the 
eminent services, the holy walk, and heavenly conversation of the 
deceased." 



MEMORIAL. 59 



OBITUARY. 

FROM THE CHRISTIAN WITNESS AND ADVOCATE. 

" Died, in Portland, Maine, September 6th, at the residence of 
his son-in-law, N. P. Richardson, Esq., the Rev. Thomas Mather 
Smith, D. D., formerly President of Kenyon College, and, at the 
time of his decease, Emeritus Professor of Systematic Divinity in 
the Theological Seminary of the Diocese of Ohio. 

" The death of this eminent man was not altogether unexpected. 
His unremitting toil for eighteen years, devoted most conscien- 
tiously and successfully to the instruction of students for the sacred 
ministry, had left marked traces of its effects in an enfeebled frame 
and shattered health, requiring his retirement from the active duties 
of his Professorship at the close of the last year, and giving him in 
his forced relaxation from labor but little hope of physical restoration. 
As his life had been peaceful, so was his death. The nature of his 
disease was so ordered as to deaden his sensibility to pain. His 
mental faculties knew no weakening to the last, and from his lips, 
ere closed in death, were heard full and firm attestation of his un- 
faltering faith, his sole reliance on the blessed Saviour, and his 
confident expectation of immortality. The system of doctrines, to 
the elucidation and enforcement of which so much of his life had 
been given, received at the close of his days his full attestation, and 
he has bequeathed to those whose theological studies he has directed, 
the expression of his unshaken belief, in death, in the truth of that 
which he had taught in life. Marked and unusual were the circum- 
stances of his departure, shadowing forth to those about his dying 
bed the abundant entrance, which we may not doubt, was his, into 
Christ's everlasting kingdom. His face was, as it were, transfigured 
before them, and the wan features, so soon to be pallid and rigid in 
death, glowed with fore-gleamings of the immortal glory as he passed 
away. It was a fitting end. Triumphant indeed was he through 
Christ our Lord. 

" Dr. Smith was the son of the Rev. Daniel Smith, A. M., for half 
a century pastor of the Congregational Church in Stamford, Con- 
necticut. Rom in 1797, graduated at Yale College in 1816, and at 
Andover Seminary in 1820, he was ordained to the Congregational 
ministry in Portland, Maine, in 1822. The same year he married 



60 MEMORIAL. 

Mary Greenleaf, the eldest daughter of the Rev. Leonard Woods, 
D. D., Abbott Professor of Christian Theology at Andover. A 
failure of health, after a few years, required his removal from Port- 
land. Subsequently he was called successively to the charge of 
parishes in Fall River, Catskill, N. Y., and New Bedford. Dis- 
satisfied with the Congregational system, he applied for Holy Orders 
in the Episcopal Church. He was ordained at New Bedford by 
the Rt. Rev. Benjamin Bosworth Smith, D. D., Bishop of Kentucky, 
the Bishop of Massachusetts being prevented from officiating by a 
sudden illness. After receiving Priest's Orders from the hands of 
Bishop Eastburn, he entered upon his duties as Milnor Professor of 
Systematic Divinity at Gambier, to which post he had been ap- 
pointed and for which he was peculiarly fitted. In this important 
department of duty he continued for eighteen years, during four of 
which he was also President of Kenyon College. In both capaci- 
ties he displayed distinguished merit, adding to mature and finished 
scholarship unusual prudence, thorough application and marked ex- 
ecutive ability. On his resignation of the Milnor Professorship, in 
December 1863, the Trustees of the Theological Seminary unani- 
mously appointed him Emeritus Professor, — a tribute of respect 
most fitting and appropriate. 

" His funeral took place at St. Luke's Church, Portland, on 
Thursday, September 8. The Rev. Alexander Burgess and the 
Rev. Asa Dalton of Portland, the Rev. E. W. Baker of New York, 
and the Rev. W. D. Doty of Newton, Mass., bore him to his last 
resting-place. The Bishop of Maine conducted the solemnities, 
bearing as an old friend alone could, the fullest testimony to the 
faithful services, the Christian character, and the holy walk of the 
deceased." 



OBITUARY. 

FROM THE EPISCOPAL RECORDER. 

"We are much pained to record the death of Dr. Thomas M. 
Smith, which took place at Portland, Maine, on the 6th instant. 
Dr. Smith has been for years one of the most prominent and useful 
clergymen of our Church. He was originally an orthodox Con- 
gregational minister ; but he entered our communion about twenty 



MEMORIAL. 61 

years ago, and soon afterwards became Professor of Systematic 
Divinity in the Seminary at Gambier. To this office he subse- 
quently joined that of President of Kenyon College and Rector of 
Rosse Chapel. It was, however, in the divinity chair that Dr. 
Smith's chief services were performed. Gifted with great powers of 
calm and lucid expression ; thoroughly possessed of the orthodox 
theology of the Reformation ; conscientious in his preparation for 
his class duties ; singularly patient in instruction ; he was, when in 
health, not only a wise and faithful, but most instructive teacher. 
Few men have done more in our Churcli in forming the theological 
mind ; and by none has this work been performed more soundly and 
faithfully. 

" Dr. Smith resigned at Gambier about a year ago, and since then 
has been residing with his children at the East." 



OBITUARY. 

BY DR. TYNG IN THE CHISTIAN TIMES. 

"My personal acquaintance with this excellent man commenced 
when he entered the ministry of the Episcopal Church, about the 
year 1841. He had been respectably and usefully settled in more 
than one place, as a Congregational or Presbyterian pastor. The 
reasons or views with which he changed his church relations I never 
particularly knew. I believe he never occupied any parish in our 
communion, as a settled pastor. In 1845, soon after I became 
the Rector of St. George's Church, the duty of nominating an 
incumbent for the Milnor Professorship of Systematic Divinity 
in Kenyon College devolved officially on me, and I unhesitatingly 
selected Dr. Smith. He was quite unknown among our brethren. 
His residence and ^hort labors with us had been exclusively 
in parts of New England. Bishop Mcllvaine naturally felt a strong 
concern in regard to the appointment, so vital in the teaching of 
his Diocese, and wrote me with this feeling, having never known Dr. 
Smith, begging me to be especially careful in the selection which I 
made. I answered him that I was perfectly satisfied, and was sure 
that he would be so also. This the event very soon proved. Dr. 
Smith had been but a single year in Gambier when the Bishop 
wrote me in expression of his great satisfaction with the selection 



62 MEMORIAL. 

which I had made. It was a feeling which increased with him 
every year during Dr. Smith's professorship. Dr. Smith was more 
than eighteen years, I think, at Gambier. During this period he 
was called upon to discharge very heavy and important duties. In 
vacancies of the presidency of the College he fulfilled the burden- 
some duties of that office in addition to his own. And his health 
which was perhaps never robust, yielded to the pressure of occupa- 
tion under which he was required to serve. But he was a most 
unshrinking and unswerving man. Rigidly systematic and econ- 
omical in the management of his time, he accomplished far more 
than would have been expected from one of his feeble aspect. Disin- 
terested and assiduous, he freely undertook to do all that he could do 
to promote the best interests of the institution to which he had given 
his heart and his life. He was eminently a faithful man, holding 
back from no practical labors, and entirely to be trusted in any 
position which he was called to occupy. As a companion in 
his official duties he was gentle, affectionate, and attractive. His 
clear knowledge of Christian truth commanded universal respect, 
and his personal excellence in Christian deportment won universal 
confidence. Few men have more completely filled up the area of 
their powers, or better improved and employed the talents committed 
to them. His discharge of the duties of his professorship was to me 
an unceasing evidence that I had been guided by higher wisdom 
than my own in the selection which I had made. A single unkind 
or depreciating animadversion upon his career, official or personal, 
has never reached me. As age advanced, the genial spirit of his 
piety advanced and deepened also. And he finished his course with 
a reputation untarnished, with an example above reproach, with 
a usefulness undiminished, beloved, esteemed, and honored among 
his brethren. Such a life and death are a rare and precious gift from 
the divine Saviour to his contending, suffering disciples here. They 
call for our commemoration, acknowledgment, and thanksgiving." 



MEMORIAL. 63 



"BISHOP BURGESS'S ADDRESS AT THE FUNERAL OF 
REV. DR. THOMAS M. SMITH. 

" The Rev. Thomas Mather Smith, D. D., lately Professor of 
Systematic Divinity in the Theological Seminary of the Diocese of 
Ohio, departed this life on the 6th inst., in the city of Portland, in 
the sixty-eighth year of his age. The funeral services were held on 
the 8th inst., in St. Luke's Church, Bishop Burgess officiating. We 
shall give hereafter some account of the life and character of Dr. 
Smith, and of the services which he rendered, through a long career, 
as a minister of the Gospel and teacher of theology, to the cause of 
evangelical religion. We are glad to be able to give at this time the 
remarks of Bishop Burgess at the funeral : — 

' In every right contemplation of death ; in every service which 
can be fitly employed at the burial of the Christian dead ; in every 
arrangement which the Christian Church can make for the due 
performance of that solemn yet consoling office ; there must be 
three stages of religious thought, three elements forming a sacred 
progress. 

' The first is the consideration of death itself as a departure, a 
dissolution — the fulfilment of the common lot and doom, which 
fixes the number of our days so that beyond threescore and ten 
the way is one of labor and sorrow. We see the union of yet 
another and another to that vast procession in which each of us 
takes the place most wisely assigned him, but according to an order 
which none can foresee except Him by whom the hairs of our heads 
are all numbered. To human nature it is a sorrow and a gloom to 
contemplate and to expect that appointed issue, which, from the 
midst of all this breathing and stirring mass, from the pleasures and 
the cares of all this daily life, from the lightness and frivolity of the 
gayest as well as from the sad and absorbing struggle of those who 
counsel and contend for the utmost interests of a nation, present or 
to come, takes each alike away, and consigns him " dust to dust." 
The end of life, attended with pain, decay, and dissolution, and 
followed by all the grief of bereavement and lasting separation, 
cannot be viewed without feelings which mark it as the sad inter- 
ruption of all earthly joys. And yet there is a sentiment of res- 



64 MEMORIAL. 

ignation, even sublime, when we can truly feel that we are bowing, 
with all our brethren, to a decree of the Lord our God, — a decree 
supreme, and supremely wise and just and good. 

' The second stage in such reflections is at the thought of peace. 
It is when the breath has died away, and the eyelids are closed. 
It is when we turn away from the grave after its sods have closed 
over the last lineaments that were like life. It is also when, long 
after time has smoothed down the furrows of grief, we remember 
the departed thoughtfully, tenderly, and with a certain sense of re- 
pose. God has been pleased, in his mercy, to ordain that such 
should be the natural feeling which should be prompted by the 
sight or thought of the grave. They rest from their labors, we say 
calmly ; they have fallen asleep ; and Christian hearts take up the 
language with all its meaning. A day of rest — a Sabbath — was 
interposed between the cross and the resurrection ; and a Sabbath- 
like stillness and sanctity hovers over the resting-place of the bodies 
of believers, and reminds us of the repose of their spirits in Para- 
dise, till the blessed consummation of the last day. 

' There, the third stage in these meditations is attained ; and it 
is one so much more elevated, that faith and hope now speak with a 
tone of triumph : " O death ! where is thy sting ? grave ! where 
is thy victory ? " From the very verge of the grave, where all that 
is merely earthly is at an end, and the prospect closes up except for 
the eye of faith, we dare to look, guided by the footsteps as well as 
by the words of the Redeemer, to the hour when all that are in the 
graves shall come forth ; and in His name we can rejoice for all 
who sleep in Jesus. We listen for the trump of the archangel. 
We anticipate even with rapture the sound of that voice which shall 
summon all that dwell in the graves to stand before the Son of 
Man. Awful as is the mighty result of that day, yet to those who 
are found in Christ, sheltered by a righteousness which was not 
theirs, and washed from all the guilt of sin through the blood of the 
Lamb that was slain, that day is the joyous morn of the resurrection 
unto life. We lay our brethren down where we expect to join 
them, in Christian places of burial, with this hope ; and when he 
whom we bury is one whose life has testified that the Lord Jesus 
Christ was to him " wisdom, and righteousness, and sanctification, 
and redemption," all these thoughts of solemnity softened into sacred 



MEMOKIAL. 65 

resignation, of peace beyond all earthly understanding, and of a 
triumph which even now hope makes its own, all have their full 
intensity, their utmost power and conception, till gratitude has re- 
moved all the bitterness from our tears. 

' The general remembrance of the dead by the Christian Church 
is in services which utter its own high confidence, as far as 
may be, through the language of holy writ, or in words which are 
little more than a transcript of that language. It is better that it 
should be general, while the special application is left to the mem- 
ory and the heart, according to the measure which has been there 
impressed by the life which has reached its close. But it has 
ever been felt, that where one whose years have been consecrat- 
ed to the work of the ministry of reconciliation is removed — one 
who must either have been faithful in his degree, or else trebly 
faithless — it was meet that his testimony to the truth and grace of 
God should be heard through his death as well as in all his previous 
career ; that, as of old, devout men carried Stephen to his burial, 
and made great lamentation for him, so now the brethren of the 
departed pastor or teacher should make affectionate mention of their 
loss and his gain. It cannot be the language of eulogy in the pres- 
ence of the pious dead. Those who have always borne witness that 
their only hope, like that of all sinful men, was in the redemption 
accomplished by the Son of God ; those who have always renounced 
their own righteousness, and clung to the righteousness which is of 
God by faith, cannot be remembered in any other manner except that 
which shall accord with their own testimony. We can but declare 
that the faith which they taught in life sustained them to the end, 
and glorify God for His grace. 

'A father and a husband has been removed from those to whom 
it has been a sacred satisfaction to lighten his infirmity and tenderly 
to minister to the peace of his decline. But he was one also whose 
whole manhood had been consecrated to the work of the Gospel, 
who had long been a teacher of those who were themselves to be- 
come teachers of the flock of Christ ; one who had thus, in ripe age, 
finished his course, laid by his task, and received the call of his Lord 
with a ready heart and mind. 

' We know what was the testimony of his instructions and of his 
life. Those, far and near, whom he has helped to train up for the 
9 



66 MEMORIAL. 

holy office of stewards of the mysteries of Christ, will hear of his 
departure with a clear recollection of the truth as they heard it 
from his lips, distinct and fervent, and spoken in love. They are 
prepared to believe that he found it strong enough to sustain him 
when heart and flesh failed him, and will well understand that he 
had but one hope, and that it was an anchor to his soul. We all 
who knew, whether at a distance or more nearly, the lineaments of 
his Christian character — its steadfastness, its gentleness, its fidelity, 
its uprightness, its tenderness — are abundantly assured that in the 
period of his weariness it was not the mere absence of extreme 
pain, so mercifully vouchsafed, that shed over the closing progress 
an aspect of so much inward repose, but rather the loving-kindness 
of the God whom he had served, lighting up his soul with the softest 
beams of the Gospel of His grace, and upholding him according to 
the promise to those whose peace shall be perfect. You who 
were with him could see this even to the close, even to the dying 
look, bright as it seemed with the solemn radiance of the celestial 
land. 

1 With every sentiment of submission, of peace, and of gratitude, 
may those who have been bereaved strengthen themselves, by God's 
grace, while'they return from the burialof so true-hearted a Chris- 
tian. They will expect to see his face again, in the resurrection of 
the just. 

* We of the ministry have before us the cheering example of one 
whose testimony has thus been maintained and recompensed. Let 
us be mindful of the close, and take heed that we so bear witness to 
the truth as it is in Jesus, and walk so blamelessly before men, that 
we also may be remembered w T ith those who have kept the faith and 
who sleep in joyful hope. 

* To all of us, brethren and friends, the voice of the departed 
teacher can only speak of the one blessed Way, and Truth, and 
Life. Oh ! may we so hear the Lord, speaking through His ser- 
vants, the living and the dead, and through all the events of His 
providence, that we may, in this our day, come to the shelter of His 
mercies, be cleansed from all our sins, be made His faithful laborers 
till the going down of the sun, and that it may be easy, when we are 
gone, to think of us as with the saints in light ! ' " 



MEMORIAL. 67 

LETTER FROM EISHOP MCILVAINE TO THE REV. JOHN COTTON SMITH, D. D. 

" Cincinnati, October 19, 1866. 
" Rev. and dear Sir : — It is not too late, I hope, for me to 
put a short tribute to your dear father's memory into the Memorial 
you are preparing. The connection between him and myself, as 
well personally as officially, all the while he was at Gambier, was 
of the most confidential and affectionate kind. Nothing ever, in 
the slightest degree, interfered with or diminished our mutual 
attachment and respect. I had the highest regard for the humility, 
simplicity, purity, and steadfastness of his piety. Having entered 
the ministry of our Church from that of another, he always spoke 
with kindness of the brethren he had left ; not thinking it necessary, 
as a proof of his cordial acceptance of, and attachment to, the dis- 
tinctive features of an Episcopal ministry and a liturgical worship, 
that he should unchurch his former associates, or deny the validity 
of their ministry and ordinances. He thought he could be, as he 
was, most truly and decidedly, a consistent Episcopalian in heart 
and life and teaching, without rushing to those extreme views, under 
the assumed name of true Churchmanship, which, I am sorry to 
say, so many who come to us from other churches, have seemed to 
think the essential accompaniment of their ecclesiastical transforma- 
tion, and evidence of its sincerity. But it is of your father's ser- 
vices as Professor of Systematic Divinity at Gambier that I wish 
particularly to write. I have never known his superior in that de- 
partment. His doctrinal views were evangelical in the strictest and 
best sense, formed by diligent searching of the Scriptures in the 
original tongues ; both of which he loved to teach, (as of both he 
was a master,) in connection with Biblical exercises. There was 
no cloudiness in his views of doctrine, nor confusion, nor vasodila- 
tion. And what he held thus clearly and firmly he taught pointedly, 
with great discrimination as to the divergent views, and with 
marked effect on the mind of the diligent student. If any young 
man ever passed through your father's course without obtaining 
clear and decided ideas of the great landmarks which distinguish 
the Protestant faith from Popery, or the Gospel in its great doc- 
trines of the person and office of Christ, the work of the Holy 
Spirit of God, the lost condition of the natural man, his recovery, 



68 MEMORIAL. 

by divine grace, in spiritual regeneration, and a free and perfect 
justification in the righteousness of Christ, through faith, with all 
that immediately depends on and springs from such chief matters 
of evangelical truth, the study of which ought to hold so large a 
place in the mind of the student seeking the ministry, and the 
teaching of which must be so prominent in the ministry of all who 
would deserve the name of ministers of Christ, then it was the 
fault of that student's mind or diligence, not of your father's teach- 
ing. I revere his memory especially as I remember him in the 
work to which he was attached, — to which he devoted himself so 
entirely, — which, as the infirmities of age and failing health in- 
creased, he resigned so reluctantly, and the good fruits of which 
will remain in the ministry of our Church, under God's blessing, for 
many generations. 

" We pray the Lord of the Harvest to send forth many such 
laborers into His harvest, for we want such theologians for our semi- 
naries, as well as sound and faithful preachers in our pulpits. 
" I remain, my dear sir, 

" Your affectionate friend and brother, 

" Chas. P. McIlvaine. 

" Rev. John Cotton Smith, D. D." 



Lb M '09 



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ev. THOMAS MATHER SMITH, D. D. 



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